Two engineers and former community college students launched an app this year called neoQuad to bring students together at Santa Barbara City College.
Jacob Sola and Ervin Young — two full-time engineers at Raytheon and Tesla, respectively — have launched the neoQuad app to advertise events on campus.
About 800 students have downloaded the app as of Monday, which connects programs such as the PRIDE Center, Study Abroad and Student Health and Wellness.
Sola and Young said they hope to sign up every club on campus by the college’s Club Day in September.
“Students are mostly on their phones all the time,” Sola said. “So what we’re doing now is meeting them where they’re at, but we’re meeting them in a way that’s going to help them connect in-person.”
The app is only available for people with a City College email. Once a person is logged in, they can see a map of the campus and a list of events from student clubs and programs.
People can sign up for events anonymously, Sola said.
During the first week of school, Sola said the majority of students were using the app to find different buildings and facilities on campus.
If a student chooses to get directions to a building, the app connects the student to their separate map app on their phone. The neoQuad app does not track a person’s location or sell personal information, Sola said.
City College owns the app’s data and has the final say on what events are included in the app.
Student clubs must go through Amy Collins, City College student programs advisor, to get an event approved for the app.
“Students aren’t reading emails like they used to,” Collins said.
The app launched in August at City College, but no club has signed up because many are still appointing members. She said she is excited for the app to increase awareness of clubs and events.
Student and campus worker Michael Alvarado said the app will enhance life at City College.
He said the COVID-19 pandemic hurt social life at the campus.
Before transferring out of the college in 2019, Alvarado remembers the student life being
“healthier” than it was when he returned last year to work for MESA, a program that supports first-generation, low-income students pursuing STEM careers.
In the past, MESA and other programs at the City College have tried to increase student turnout for events by sending out emails or putting up flyers.
Students tend to ignore emails and flyers, Alvarado said. At times campus life seemed “kinda dead,” Alvarado said.
He said the neoQuad app would help spread the word about events like Science Discovery Day — an event that promotes the MESA program.
The app could also help move departments and programs at the college out of their silos, Alvarado said.
“The way the college is structured, a lot of our departments are in their own cliques,” Alvarado said.
Sola and Young started neoQuad in 2025 after graduating college. They met at UC Riverside through a Christian student group called The Navigators.
The duo wanted to create an app that could help college students attend campus events and connect with people on their campus.
Students are less connected to their campus as factors like social media and the emergence of artificial intelligence have moved people away from reality, Sola said.
But with the neoQuad app, he hopes students can fall back on building relationships through campus events.
“A lot of the reason why we go to college is not just to go in, pass classes and get out,” Sola said. “It’s to form bonds, community, connection and network as well.”
After the COVID-19 pandemic, enrollment declined at City College and other colleges alike. This created issues with finding community at school, Young said.
Sola and Young interviewed students at City College, UCSB, Las Positas College, Cal State Eastbay, Santa Clara University and Stanford before launching the neoQuad app.
In their interviews with 110 students, they found more felt disconnected from their campus if they were not involved in a club, and 86% of these students had skipped events because they had no one to go with.
“It was very clear who was in the know and who’s having a great time in college,” Young said.
The duo decided to go all in with City College by January, connecting with student clubs and school administrators.
On May 21, the neoQuad app officially began its pilot partnership with the college at a Santa Barbara City College Board of Trustees meeting.
The college is not paying for the app this year, and recently Sola and Young recruited five students to help run the app with them.
The hope for the two engineers is to support student mental health through publicizing campus events. And the result could lead to retaining more students, Sola said.
While City College is neoQuad’s first and only customer, Sola and Young hope to move into more California community colleges who want to elevate student life.
“This is a problem that exists at almost every single college campus,” Sola said. “I think it would be great to be able to expand.”
