Walking past Lerner Hall last week, students were surrounded by posters stating “Give the ukulele back (to whoever owns it) (please) (thank you),” and asking “Where have all the Latinos gone?” Three Columbia students are looking to transfer this flurry of paper onto TV screens.

Rajat Roy, SEAS ’10, Scott Wang, CC ’10, and William Organek, CC ’10, are creating a business enterprise called CUAds which aims to replace fliers with TV screens advertising student events.

“This is a revolutionary way of getting to students,” Roy said, explaining that they would put up TVs where students typically get bottlenecked with information about events on campus.

“Basically, CUAds provides an entirely new venue for anything,” Roy said. Since first pitching the idea in May to the Center for Career Education, the three entrepreneurs have encountered some difficulties in putting their business plan into action, largely regarding its funding plan and their market research.

Scott Wright, director of housing and dining, also expressed concern that advertising on TVs around campus might not stop people from putting up paper fliers anyway.
“The question for us ... is that we’re not sure that anything is being taken away, and that this might just add to it,” Wright said. As part of the plan, Roy would need the permission of administrators to install the televisions on University property.

“I see that one to one-and-a half-months from now we will have completed the market research and business plan,” Roy said after having meetings with administrators who asked him to further flesh out the idea. “Then we will try to present to Columbia administrators again in one-and-a-half to two months.”

All three students have touted the positive environmental impact that not printing as many paper fliers will have as one of the main selling points.

Eco-Rep Hannah Lee, SEAS ’09, said she thought it was a good idea, but added that Eco-Reps “would be concerned with the amount of energy the TVs used,” and would want to do a quantitative analysis on the long-run effects of running them.

Questions regarding the structure of the organization—whether or not they will turn a profit, how they will be funded and where exactly they will fit into the University structure— have gone unanswered, as Roy, Wang, and Organek continue to work with University administrators.

“Now that we know what we have to do, we’re pretty confident that we can get it done,” Roy said.
Julie Appel can be reached at Julie.Appel@Columbiaspectator.com.