Inspiration

Large universities often feel like small cities, which creates a loneliness in a crowd problem. Students want to get involved, but campus information is fragmented across Instagram pages, Discord servers, mailing lists, and word of mouth. Even motivated students miss out simply because discovering communities requires too much effort.

We built UniSync to solve this problem at its root. Our purpose is to lower the barrier to belonging by centralizing, personalizing, and humanizing how students discover campus life. We believe that access to the right community can directly impact student retention, mental health, and overall success.

What it does

UniSync is an AI-powered personal assistant designed to help students discover and engage with their university community.

Aggregates clubs, events, and activities into one personalized feed
Matches opportunities to a student’s interests and preferences
Generates a Weekly Events Briefing so students always know what’s happening
Converts summaries into narrated audio using ElevenLabs, making engagement more accessible
Allows students to stay informed without constantly searching or scrolling

The core purpose of UniSync is to reduce the search cost of friendship and make social discovery effortless.

How we built it

We designed UniSync with a scalable, production-style architecture to reflect how this product could realistically grow beyond a hackathon.

🎨 Frontend (The Client)

Framework: React 19 + Vite for fast builds and smooth development
Language: TypeScript for safety and maintainability
Styling: Tailwind CSS + Shadcn UI (Radix UI primitives) for clean, accessible design
Animations: Framer Motion to create smooth, engaging transitions
Icons: Lucide React for consistent UI visuals
State & Routing: React Router DOM + Custom Context API (AppContext)
Authentication: Firebase SDK for secure client-side authentication

The frontend focuses on clarity, speed, and approachability so students feel welcomed, not overwhelmed.

⚙️ Backend (The Server)

Runtime: Node.js
Framework: Express.js with custom API routing
Database: MongoDB using Mongoose for structured data modeling
Authentication: Firebase Admin SDK for secure token verification

The backend acts as the system’s backbone, handling data persistence, authentication, and AI orchestration.

🧠 AI & Automation Services

LLM: Google Gemini 2.0 Flash
- Used for ranking events, summarizing club data, and generating weekly newsletters
Text-to-Speech: ElevenLabs API
- Used to narrate the Weekly Events Briefing in a natural, engaging voice
Calendar Integration: Google Calendar API

📦 Tools & Infrastructure

Shared Language: TypeScript across frontend and backend for consistency
Environment Management: Dotenv
File Uploads: Multer
Development Tools: Nodemon + ts-node

This stack is optimized for AI-heavy applications, balancing speed, reliability, and rapid iteration.

Challenges we ran into

No centralized or public APIs for student organizations
Event data spread across unstructured platforms
Coordinating AI-generated text, voice narration, and calendar data in real time

We addressed these by building flexible pipelines that allow AI services to work together while keeping the system modular and extensible.

What we want to add next (and why)

Visual Event Feed (Flyers & Posters)
Why: Many students engage visually first. This will make discovery faster and more intuitive.
Cross-Campus Networking
Why: Students often want to meet peers outside their program or university. This unlocks broader social value.
Smarter Recommendations with Feedback Loops
Why: Letting the system learn from user interaction improves relevance over time.
Deeper Calendar Syncing
Why: Automatically fitting events into a student’s schedule reduces planning friction.

Each planned feature reinforces our core mission: making community discovery effortless and inclusive.

What we learned

AI is most effective when given clear roles and real context
Reducing friction creates more impact than adding complexity
Social products require empathy-driven design, not just technical performance

This project taught us that technology can—and should—be used to help people feel less alone.

What's next for UniSync

Our long-term vision is to make community discovery the default student experience rather than an obstacle. UniSync aims to become the social layer of university life—quietly working in the background to help students belong, connect, and thrive.