in Articles, Team Updates

Skolafund faruq web development

Faruq & Wildan discussing about Skolafund’s tech development plans earlier this year.

For the past 3 to 4 months, Faruq and Wildan – the duo that is behind the majority of the codes and technology on Skolafund.com – have been working on some major technical upgrades for Skolafund.com!

The upgrades are both front-end (things that we can see and experience) and back-end (the tech magic that happens behind the scenes!).

There are a lot of technical upgrades done by the duo that if I were to list here a majority of us won’t understand (including me because I am not a tech guy!), but I can assure you that each item was important in making the website better.

Despite that being said, there are three major improvements that you will be able to notice!

1. Cleaner design

It looks so fresh now.

Check out this GIF to get an idea of how Skolafund have changed in terms of look and feel:

Skolafund evolution

Skolafund interface evolution: 1.0 to 2.0 to now 3.0!

Check out our website to see the full redesign.

In addition to looking better, we have made certain design changes which we hope will improve the experience of our community members on Skolafund.com. These changes are based on feedback we received from users of our earlier version.

2. Faster loading website

The speed to load our website is now faster than ever! Faruq and Wildan have really cleaned up our codes and updated our tech to make our website “lighter” and “faster” (relative to our previous website!).

Skolafund is fast as flash

This is among the things that you won’t really notice and appreciate but its there and a lot of work have been put in to make it happen. I think if you visit Skolafund regularly, you should be able to notice the difference!

What does this mean?
This means:
(1) Relatively less data consumption compared to the previous site
(2) It’s easier for students who live in areas with poor/slow internet to access our website
(3) Better experience for sponsors to support a campaign! You don’t have to wait a long time for the page to load. Less anxiety when making a sponsorship (worrying if your donation got through) because the website reacts faster now!

Click here to experience the speed!

3. WE HAVE LAUNCHED PROJECT CROWDFUNDING!

This has been one of the most requested feature by tertiary students in 2017.

Skolafund Project Crowdfunding

What is project crowdfunding campaign, you ask?

In short, raising funds for projects.

Previously, we only enable students to raise funds for their higher educational needs, like fees and daily expenses.

With Project Crowdfunding, students can now raise funds for innovative and creative projects! Examples of projects include Final Year Projects, Projects for student societies, Research Projects and so on.

As long as the project has the potential to solve a problem, is driven by a passionate team and there is value for the larger community to be involved, we feel that it should get the opportunity to be funded. Hence, after much requests, we have decided to introduce the feature officially!

Note:
(1) We are still testing out this feature. There will be more improvements and changes along the way. Just like anything that we launch, the first few months will be experimental. We will learn along the way and work to make the feature better for both campaigners and sponsors.
(2) Not all applications will be approved because not all projects are suitable to be crowdfunded. I encourage you to drop an email to [email protected] to find out if your project is suitable for crowdfunding.

 

Skolafund Wildan Coder

Wildan working on our website codes

These are the 3 things that you should look out for when checking out our website now.

Each month, there are minor improvements to the site that do not formally actually announce. I just feel that this is worth sharing since this is a big one! All of the monthly upgrades that we do are largely based on our learnings and your invaluable feedback.

The team at Skolafund strives to be incrementally better each day. As much as possible, we wish to make things even better for our community members, both students, and sponsors. Hence, we truly appreciate the support and feedback that we receive.

If you have any feedback in mind for us, or if you wish to share what you think, you can write to me directly ([email protected]). We would love to get your thoughts!

Have Your Say!