blogUT

Eric Cheung, a U of T alumnus (Computer Engineering ‘06) wrote in to blogUT to tell us about a website called OneBigU. We thought it was pretty cool, so we’d like to share it with you.

I think OneBigU is a pretty neat idea. Tell us about it in the simplest terms. 3 sentences, each 3 words or less.
Help Students. Raise Money. Save Darfur.

Okay, now in a bit more detail. What is the function of OneBigU? What’s the goal?
OneBigU’s mission is to build a community of students from different schools around the world where they could learn from each other. Students can ask and answer each other’s questions. Every correct answer earns a little bit of money, and the student can opt to donate to a Darfur charity.

OneBigU is also partnered with the non-profit organization, Help Darfur Now (HDN). Founded by three New Jersey high school students, HDN is dedicated to raising funds and awareness of the genocide in Darfur, Sudan.

When and how did you come up with the idea?
I came up with the idea of a student community when I was in school. I wanted to build a community of students from different schools around the world where they could learn from each other. So it’s like one big school. I also wanted the site to appeal more to university students too, so I named it One Big University.

I chose to support a Darfur charity because I believe that Darfur is in need of a lot of aid. As you can read from the news, the Sudanese government backs the rebels committing the atrocities in Darfur, thus making it much harder to provide relief to refugees. We have to work twice as hard to help those suffering in Darfur.

Okay, I’m curious. Where does the money come from?
The money for donations come from the sponsors and advertisers on the site, therefore ensuring the site stays free for students. Most students don’t have tons of money to give away, so the ads make it possible for anyone who contributes answers to raise funds for a great cause.

I know you graduated 0T6. If you don’t mind, could you tell us a bit more about yourself? What’s your daytime job?
I started working on a fulltime job as soon as I graduated, and I am still working there as of today. While working full time, I felt that I could do more to give back to the community. I also wanted to do something cool that was outside of the regular 9 to 5, so I decided to build OneBigU. Doing this is a great learning experience, and I highly recommend other students to start their own initiatives.

The URL of the website is http://www.onebigu.com.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 23rd, 2008 at 4:53 pm and is filed under We've Got Issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.