‘Sidekick’ Application: A Smart Mobile Application for Generation Z

Educational systems are based on students and professors who are linked in an organized manner to achieve learning outcomes. Recently, however, academic institutions are experiencing very few, yet ineffective, ways of communication among these parties. Therefore, a University ‘Sidekick’ Application has been developed in one of the educational institutions in the Gulf region to tackle the lack of communication among students and academics in a university community. The methodology followed to develop this application is the waterfall SDLC. Therefore, the application was planned for, the requirements were gathered, modeled and analyzed, the interfaces and databases were designed, and the coding and testing took place subsequently. Sidekick application is a friendly virtual assistant and intuitive to use. It provides booking for amenities, receiving alerts and notifications, a live chat which makes it easier to communicate on and off campus. Moreover, the virtual assistant can strengthen the relationships between “students and instructor”, “alumni students and current students” and “instructor and alumni students”. Furthermore, Sidekick is compatible on IOS and Android. The study concluded with implications and future development directions.