Illinois students launch app to make sure you never get lost on the way to class

Too many of us can remember those confusing first couple of days of college. We were all anxious freshman once, wandering around campus without a clue where I classes were. But now a Parkland freshman and a UIUC pHD student have created an app to make that confusion a thing of the past.

KeepUp Class Organizer is an app that launched this fall which allows students to take photo of their course schedule and immediately receive GPS directions to all their classes. Conceived by Parkland finance major Brandon Lehman and coded by UIUC computer science pHD student John Zhao, the app will revolutionize campus navigation for college campuses. Although it’s only been used at UIUC by 250-300 so far, the app is expanding to other compatible colleges, including  Texas Tech, Wisconsin, Ohio State, Texas Christian University, Baylor, Arizona State, Missouri, Northern Arizona and the University of Indiana.

Brandon Lehman speaking at a SocialFuse event last winter

Brandon believes the app services freshman and international students unfamiliar with campus life. He wanted to make a single source for all their navigational needs.“Every semester students are faced with their course schedule,” Brandon said. “They see it, particularly freshman students and international students, as basically a big block of code. It has buildings, whatever, it has the abbreviation for the building, the room number, and if you’re not familiar with that information it could take a long time to look through the different websites, the different links, to find out where you’re going, then bring all that information to GoogleMaps of how to get there.”

Brandon initially pitched the app idea at a SocialFuse event this winter. At the time, he was working as an independent financial trader. John agreed to sign on as a cofounder. Since then, John has worked on improving the app while Brandon handles marketing and distribution. they also had the assistance of a former member of the Tumblr design team.

Their initial launch for the fall semester was marketed mostly on word-of-mouth. “It was more organic for the winter semester just because, more or less, we were working on it, trying to figure out the kinks, the bugs,” Brandon said. “Our biggest fear was we were going to release an app and have a huge push, maybe a couple hundred to a thousand people would get on it, realize there was a big bug and never come back to it again.”

However, they plan to relaunch the app next semester with a new social feature. The social setting will give students an immediate chatroom connection to fellow classmates. KeepUp will allow students to make possible study buddies or friends with people that otherwise might be just anonymous faces in massive lecture halls.

“I think the live thread could be used in a plethora of ways,” Brandon said. “In my mind I see it being used for classroom discussion, notes, pictures, answers, whatever. But at the same time if it catches on to where a lot, a lot of people are using it, people can discuss party plans, what’s hot, what events are going on in school, create groups.”

Brandon hopes the app’s upcoming social setting will allow it to have a more lasting impact on student lives. Aware that only a fourth of the student body will require the GPS for a month, Brandon thinks the app’s instant connection to classmates will give it the legs it needs to become a constant part of students’ lives through out their four years in college.

Brandon believes the app has the potential to expand to over 300 schools. Although he’s certain he’ll achieve high success with enough work, he’s not sure where the direction of the company will go after the app reaches to it’s full height.

“There’s two different paths, and we’re not sure which one we want to go with,” Brandon said. “There’s one where we make KeepUp it’s own company with different products. Right now there’s the KeepUp class organizer, but maybe we could add something for high schoolers, something for tutors, just different products through the KeepUp Brand. That’s one where we establish it as a company with multiple products, or we just grow it to a point where we can sell it to someone like a Chegg or a Blackboard.”