Earlier this month, Dialogue spoke to Durham University Bright Ideas Winner 2022, Project Student Housing.
The project is a software-as-a-solution start-up looking to provide a paperless and more efficient solution to the student housing industry, and grew from the University’s Hazan Venture Lab.
MSc Management Student Vishay Karia came up with the idea for Project Student Housing during his undergraduate degree, when he experienced first-hand how long-winded the lettings process could be for students like him and his friends, as well as for the landlords looking to rent to them.
Wanting to find an alternative solution to the arduous processes he encountered on his housing journey, Vishay got to work looking at what could be done differently.
With a solution that aims to bring together issue reporting, logged communications and an online banking interface – each designed to enhance the renting experience for both tenant and landlord – Project Student Housing has gone from success to success since its Bright Ideas win. It’s since received additional funding from the University of East Anglia and the Royal Academy of Engineering.
Talking about the process, Vishay commented:
In lockdown I thought, surely there is a better way. So we decided to create Project Student Housing, a software solution to student rental.
The project now has its own team working from Sunderland Software City, gained a Chief Advisor (Mark Witherspoon, the former Director of Data Services at Zoopla), and is working on developing prototype software ready for the new academic year.
Project Student Housing has now opened its first investment round to help get the project even further off the ground, and is recruiting landlords and students to be beta-testers for the new platform.
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