Entering their fourth year at Trinity, Electronic and Computer Engineering students Charlie Murphy, Frank Clarke, and Hugh Crotty, developed the new app “FrontSquare”, as a way to “give back” to their fellow students.
Taking campus by storm after its launch during Freshers’ Week, FrontSquare is an app that has everything related to the college’s hundreds of societies, all in one place. Replacing the current system of fragmented updates through Instagram and email, the app simplifies the process of finding societies and keeping up to date with events. The new platform features a home page listing all upcoming society events, a noticeboard with society updates, and the ability to search, follow, and message individual societies.
Prior to the app’s launch at Freshers’ Fair, two of the founders, Charlie Murphy and Frank Clarke, sat down with University Times to discuss the benefit of an app like FrontSquare to student life and the process behind its development.
Coming to Trinity from Kildare, Charlie Murphy explained that he started college without knowing anyone. Overwhelmed by the hustle and bustle of Freshers’ Fair, he found it difficult to find the societies he was interested in. Furthermore, Murphy deleted his Instagram account when he started college, making it harder to keep track of societies and events. After befriending fellow founder Hugh Crotty, the two conceived the initial idea for FrontSquare in their first year of college, interested in finding a way to resolve the issue.
“As the year went on, we heard about societies and we were like, ‘is there anywhere where we can find out where this is,’ and there wasn’t,” explained Murphy.
While the idea remained prevalent in the back of their minds, the three friends only took action in May of this year, feeling better equipped with knowledge of coding and the necessary technology in comparison to their first year selves. Furthermore, creating the app in time for their final year of college felt full circle for the students.
“We all had a great time in university, in Trinity, so it’s a good way to kind of give back to the students.”
With Trinity hosting almost 200 student societies, the need for a clear location for each society to exist was apparent to the students, with they themselves only joining societies “accidentally” after hearing about them through friends over time.
Murphy added, “You’re not going to know there is some event on Thursday for a society you might be interested in, you would never know [unless you have the society on Instagram].”
Aside from the practical function of the platform, the students also explained that they felt an alternative to Instagram is important because of the “push against” doom-scrolling on social media;
“We found this big push against Instagram, against this kind of infinite scroll, so we were just like ‘how can we do it and let people still be involved without having to have Instagram,’” Murphy explained, ultimately outlining FrontSquare as a way of “equaling the playing field.”
An app made by students for students, the founders emphasised that there is no monetary benefit for them if people or societies start using the app – it is solely an earnest attempt to make students’ lives easier when it comes to finding societies and hearing about events. And thus, unlike Instagram, they do not benefit from students doom-scrolling their app. The goal is for students to be able to use it for five minutes, find what they need, and leave – rather than getting distracted by Instagram reels or stories.
Co-founder Frank Clarke added: “The whole benefit for us is like, we are actually users of the app as well as people making it, so we have a connection to what we’re making, which is really satisfying.”
Development of the app began in May when the students left for their J1 in San Francisco, working on it during their free time to get it up and running in time for Freshers’ Week. This included having to create code to manually upload every post and announcement from societies’ Instagram accounts onto FrontSquare, ready for students to use without having to wait for individual societies to sign up and post themselves.
While they made use of their coding skills, the three students were also able make innovative use of Artificial Intelligence. With the app requiring eighty thousand lines of code, using AI to shorten the time spent on coding was like “magic” according to Clarke, allowing them to focus their efforts on the app’s function and design. The existence of AI has made app development more accessible, with Clarke further explaining: “With all the help you can find online, you don’t really need [experience], we know what we want from the app and so it’s a matter of working on it until we get there, like I don’t think you need years of technical experience.”
Adding to Clarke’s comment, Murphy explained: “That is the difference in going into fourth year now versus when we had the idea in first year, like the playing field is completely equal — if you have a great idea for an app, it takes a lot of work and you need to be persistent, but we’re not genius coders or anything, we just had an idea and […] we had a vision of what we wanted it to look like. It helps to know what you’re looking at, but once again, it’s very accessible — that’s what we would say to anyone who has an idea, just try it.”
Despite having no individually designated roles, the three friends worked as a team, trusting each other to follow their ideas and make it work.
“We’re in the startup mindset, we’re just doing it and whatever we’re doing we are very trusting in each other — if someone wants to do something, we’re just like do it,” explained Murphy. “The three of us live together, so we know each other very well, so we kind of know their decision will be fine.”
At the moment, the fourth years are focusing on increasing student awareness of the app, and getting societies signed up so that they can begin posting and announcing events onto the platform. Hoping it will reduce the stress of Freshers’ Fair for societies, especially for smaller societies with less engagement, Murphy commented: “There are so many different societies and they are all fighting for the same kind of exposure in the front square [during Freshers’ Week], so we are just trying to equal the playing field.”
As for long term goals, the three students are hoping to eventually create a way for students to purchase tickets for society events or trips through the app alone, eliminating cash transactions or the need for a third-party site like FIXR. On a broader scale, the founders recognise the potential for the app to expand into other Irish universities, as the difficulty of finding societies and events is not unique to Trinity, however they concluded: “You can never say never, but for now it is definitely, 100% Trinity focussed.”
During this year’s Freshers’ Fair, the University Times spoke to societies and students to get their thoughts on the new app, before catching up with the FrontSquare founders once again to get an update on the app’s reception.
PRO and Ents Officer for the Canoe and Kayaking Society, Caithlin Allison, is in the process of signing the society up for FrontSquare. Believing that it will help increase sign-ups, Allison agreed that the app is a good alternative, as “usually, you know, you have like ten different links that you have to click on to get to somewhere, [on the app] it’s very simplified, easy, and direct.” However, she also acknowledged that it is too early to know if it is better than the current system of Instagram posts and emails, conscious that students may not want another app to download. “I think if the app is properly advertised and everyone on campus has the app, then it will be more useful.”
Junior Sophister English Student, Darragh Russell, reflected on his first year experience with societies, agreeing that FrontSquare will be hugely beneficial for incoming Freshers.
“I think it is very helpful [for incoming students] because all you ever really have is Instagram to get all the society events and it’s really difficult to keep up with them.”
Continuing, Russell noted that “[In first year], it was difficult, I didn’t find many societies. I reckon [the app] would have helped – it would have made everything straightforward.”
Speaking to students and societies throughout Freshers’ Fair, FrontSquare’s Charlie Murphy, Hugh Crotty, and Frank Clarke noted a positive reception to news of the app.
“It’s going great! We’re getting a lot of students involved, and then the societies, we’re getting the name recognised and they saw our email, now they’re seeing our faces, it’s all coming together […] Everyone’s enthusiastic, which is the main thing.”
After meeting Provost Linda Doyle at the Trinity Entrepreneurial Society (TES) stand, Hugh Crotty spoke to her about the app; “She actually said it was a great idea and she was supportive, told me to send her a quick email, which I did, and then she had a look for herself and she thought it was great.”
Following the interaction, Trinity’s Provost posted a screenshot of the app on Instagram with the caption: “This app is great. I heard about it from [@testrinity] today during a packed Freshers Fair! Thanks Hugh, Frank, and Charlie!”
