UC Endorses Event Website

The Undergraduate Council voted unanimously to endorse Eventplease—a new website that provides a potential alternative to the current Harvard Online Events Calendar—at its general meeting last night.

In contrast to the catch-all Harvard Events Calendar, Eventplease will allow student groups to create profiles and post events that may be more directly applicable to the undergraduate population.

“We find that many of the events posted on the current Events Calendar are irrelevant, which has caused a lot of students to stop using the site,” said Alisha D. Ramos ’12, co-creator of Eventplease. “We wanted to create a solution to that and create something more useful.”

According to the UC legislation, the new website will improve upon the current Online Events Calendar in a variety of ways—namely by offering iCal, Google Calendar, and Facebook integration, as well as event tracking and a unified interface to showcase all Harvard events.

In addition, the website will be able to suggest events that might appeal to individual users, allowing for a more personalized experience.

“It can be thought of as the Pandora of events,” said Michael B. Wong ’12, lead creator of Eventplease. “Different people have different tastes, and we want to accommodate that.”

Wong, who created the website with his three close friends, said they touched base with the UC during the Hack Harvard event in January, and the UC subsequently agreed to help publicize the site.

Wong and his friends’ creation was the only project entered in Hack Harvard that was not created as a requirement for Computer Science 50: “Introduction to Computer Science.” According to Eventplease creators, this has proven to be an advantage in the long run.

“The site wasn’t created as a CS50 project, so we weren’t working under the mentality that we had to get this done in two weeks,” Wong said. “Instead, it has become a work in progress and we are constantly open to new ideas and suggestions.”

Council members stressed the important role publicity will play in the success of the website.

“Something like this requires a lot of strong advertisement in the beginning to create an initial user base,” UC Secretary Michael C. George ’14 said. “Once we launch the website and get it off the ground, we need to give student groups an incentive to post events.”

According to Wong, they will initially launch the site by posting a variety of events, but he then hopes that student groups will begin claiming or creating their own profiles on the site so they can advertise their own events.

“In order to get this off the ground we need the UC’s help,” Wong said. “After that I hope that it becomes automated and self-perpetuating.”

—Staff writer Rachael E. Apfel can be reached at rachaelapfel@college.harvard.edu.