You're at the end of the line at your favorite burrito joint, so you pull out your phone to entertain yourself for the 10-minute wait.
Instead of sliding through an endless stream of pictures and videos posted by your friends, a group of Gainesville entrepreneurs wants you to read through science news and technology projects to make your time online more worthwhile.
Called “the social network of science,” the STEM’d website was launched on March 23 as a long-term project to increase collaboration in the STEM areas of science, technology, engineering and math.
“You hear people say, 'Oh, I was just on Facebook for three hours doing nothing,'" said Kevin Lin, one of the site's founders. “What we wanted to do was create a social network with a purpose.”
The website was created by Gainesville residents Lin, 21; Devin Morgenstern, 29; and Daniel Urban, 22.
With little coding experience, the group designed a platform comparable to other social media sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn.
After signing up for a STEM’d account, users have the ability to comment on news, groups and research papers related to any science field. The site also has chat and networking functions where users can make connections.
“There is nothing similar to STEM’d,” said David Whitney, the entrepreneur in residence at the University of Florida’s College of Engineering.
The STEM’d founders consulted with Whitney while developing their idea of science-driven social media. He said the website is unique because unlike traditional social media, the platform is aligned with the interests of professionals.
STEM’d users have the opportunity to network within the site’s scientific focal point. Both Whitney and the STEM'd founders said there are benefits to connecting with like-minded users.
The founders have been surprised by the number of new ideas and partnerships created through the site in the short time it has been live, said Lin, who will graduate from UF in May with a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering.
ChordBuff, a music development application created by UF student Ari Farias, was one of the first projects posted on STEM’d.
“We need a platform that removes ego out of the equation so only practical information [and] ideas [circulate],” Farias, a computer engineering senior, wrote in an email. “I’m proud to post ChordBuff…to the site so that hopefully others are encouraged to get involved.”
Lin also described two biomedical engineering students, one from Florida International University and one from UF, who connected through the site’s general news feed after posting about similar research topics.
The student from FIU, 23-year-old junior Andres Carrillo, was one of about 115 people who joined STEM’d during the first two days the site was live.
“[STEM’d] will be useful for spreading and discussing ideas, learning about new advances in STEM areas and connecting people who are interested in the same things as you are,” he wrote in an email. “I do think in the future I will meet a ton [of] people.”
The website helped co-founder Daniel Urban begin to fulfill a long-time goal of entering a six-hour design competition — all he needed was a team.
“I posted it on the site, and I’ve had four people collaborating with me [in] two days,” Urban, a UF mechanical engineering senior, said.
While Lin and Urban are still in college, both said they plan to spread the social network wherever they go after graduating this year.
So far, college students make up most of the STEM’d users, but Urban said he wants to develop a diverse user base for each of the site’s focus points: science, technology, engineering, math, design and medicine.
“We want it to bridge the gap between high school students, high school professors, professors here in a college setting and professionals,” he said. “College is only four years, so if we only did it for college students, we would be missing a lot of people and a lot of knowledge.”