In between classes, careers, hobbies, and other obligations, coordinating plans with friends can be difficult for many college students and young professionals.
“We’ve all experienced this planning chaos firsthand,” says Jainil Desai ’25 (ENG), a computer science major. “What if there was a way to make getting together with friends easier, smarter and more fun?”
Desai, along with seven other students developed an innovative solution—a mobile app that simplifies social planning into a smooth, personalized experience.
The team, also including Engineering students Yuzhuo Zhang ’25, Kevin Enrique Hernandez ’25, Amid Qazi ’25, Jan Ulloa, ’25 Toyi Hendrik Shimizu ’25, Mohammad Abujaffar ’25, and Ignacio Efrain Deleon ’25, debuted their app— STAC-IT— during the first-ever Senior Design Day Program held April 25 at UConn Stamford.
In 2024–2025, UConn Stamford has 31 students engaged in year-long senior design projects as part of its full four-year computer science degree program. To showcase their work and strengthen ties with the broader community, the campus hosted its inaugural Senior Design Day Program — providing students the opportunity to present their projects to fellow students, faculty, and industry partners.
The program is similar to the Senior Design Demonstration Day held annually at UConn Storrs.
“Located in a growing industrial and technology hub, with proximity to Stamford and greater New York area companies, UConn Stamford is uniquely positioned to foster strong collaborations between its students and the tech workforce,” says Hasan Baig, director of the computer science program at UConn Stamford and event organizer. “Events like the Senior Design Day Program are critical in preparing graduates for real-world opportunities while helping industry partners discover emerging talent.”
During the program, six teams made five-minute pitches to multiple UConn alumni and industry leaders who served as judges. Later, the teams spoke to the judges one-on-one during a poster session. The STAC-IT team, sponsored by Stacks IT, took first place.
Aaron McClure, a judge from GE Appliances and CoCREATE in Stamford, found all six projects to be “good ideas that solve common problems.” STAC-IT, in particular, he says, is an ingenious way to get friends together.
“Sometimes organizing people can be like herding cats,” he says. “If you want to get coffee, you can check the STAC-IT app to see if any of your friends also want to get coffee so you can meet up.”
McClure also was impressed with Gush, an online dating app that prioritizes personality—rather than physical attraction—to foster authentic connections. Paul Kwon ’25, Lyles Williams ’25, Max Senchukov ’25, and Joseph Vincento ’25 worked with the Woods Hole Institute to develop the app that pairs two users and places them inside a “blind date” with a countdown timer. When this timer finishes, users can either like or dislike each other. If both users like each other, they can now see each other’s photos and continue their conversation.
“The dating app is a very novel idea and very different that other ones out there,” McClure says. “I really liked their approach.”
In addition, Arianna Azizi ’25, Savar Jain ’25, and Romick Jean-Baptiste ’25 worked with their industry sponsor Neural Tax Networks to help reduce confusion during tax season. By using AI, their product provides answers to assist users with accessible tax and accounting research.
“I’ve seen my dad struggle with going his own taxes, so I really liked the idea of using AI to help normal people file their taxes,” says Hamza Ejaz ’27. “It was the most attention-grabbing project.”
Suchitha Misra’25, Karima Hamada ’25, Ananya Jonnakuti ’25, William French ’25, Trang Tran ’25, and Dylan Young ’25 worked with industry sponsor PRE to create gameified startup pitches. The platform enables audiences to act as mock investors, providing real-time feedback and investment signals to founders during live or remote events. This gamified approach boosts engagement, helps identify high-potential startups, and provides valuable performance insights to presenters.
Peter Vaichus ’25, Tom McCarthy’25, and Joshua Pintacasi ’25 worked with their industry sponsor Culture Tech to help museums track their collections, licenses, and workflows. The team developed and integrated a Digital Asset Manager (DAM) into a specialized software so clients can import their collections directly from their DAM.
Sakib Nazmus ’25, Akhil Jannu ’25, William Lee ’25, and Dedeep Singu ’25 worked with their industry sponsor State Street Global Advisors to help institutional investors interpret make better financial decisions. The tool extracts and scores sentiment by topic (financial metrics, macro trends, regulation) and time. A custom dashboard enables visualization and analysis of paragraph and keyword level sentiment trends.
Mechanical engineering major Dalia Clarke ’22 (ENG) returned to her alma mater to help judge the presentations.
“I love learning from the students,” she says. “I was very impressed with the depth of their work and their ability to answer questions, and also that they all had plans for making their projects even better in the future.”
