Casacol

Inspiration: Affordable Student Housing for CMU Africa Students in Kigali

Carnegie Mellon University Africa (CMU Africa), based in Kigali, Rwanda, has seen significant growth in its student population over recent years. However, as the student body expands, a growing problem has surfaced regarding housing, especially in the pre-semester and post-semester periods. This issue is not only causing financial strain on students but is also creating inefficiencies in how students allocate their time and resources during these critical academic transition phases.

What it does

A progressive web application designed exclusively for students of non-residential colleges, allowing users to post listings for homes they previously lived in, housemate vacancies, and product offerings for others to browse and find suitable options.

How we built it

We designed and A/B tested a marketplace prototype in Figma.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Our model solves the supply and demand model that plagues most market places because it is crowdsourced. by leveraging the student population we are able to find good housing prospects for new students.

What we learned

find housing in an unfamiliar place can be very daunting taking into account the language barrier, the scammers mixed in with the genuine agents and a tight budget