A group of Exeter students and graduates have created an app to help students discover events in the city. Officially launching this Freshers’ Week, Motive is the brainchild of developer Mitch Robinson, 2019 Computer Science graduate, and designer Louis Evans, second-year Computer Science undergraduate.
Responding to feedback that Facebook has become too saturated with events, Robinson told Exeposé that Motive aims to “encapsulate everything that a student might want to do.” The team have worked with the Students’ Guild and the Exeter Civic Council to integrate a range of events into the app, including both nightlife and other activities.
‘We want to help societies reach the right people’
Given the enormous number of events on offer in Freshers’ Week, the Motive team want to help new students figure out which events are popular. Once they have signed into the app using their Facebook account, the ability to both ‘like’ events and add them to a personal calendar will create an events ranking. Robinson told us, “You’re not just going into Facebook blind, you actually have a view of what your peers think is good.”
In addition, the team hope to increase visibility for Guild society events. “The biggest club promoters can just determine where people go, and societies just get a little bit left out. We want to help societies reach the right people.”
Robinson developed Motive last year as his dissertation project. The team behind it have benefitted from Google grants, as well as financial and technical support from Think Try Do, the student start-up incubator based at the Innovation Centre. Think Try Do offers up to a thousand pounds to projects pitched to them by students. The Motive team said the incubator have offered them invaluable help, including social media workshops and business advice.
Motive is live now, and is available for free on the Apple and Google Play stores.
