‘Radical reset’: Uplifty app aims to help university students find connection offline

he app is designed for students to organise and meet at events ranging from protests to beach clean-ups.

Image: Handout Youth-led movements have swept the world in recent years – from protests that toppled governments in Bangladesh, Nepal, Bulgaria and Madagascar, to political rallies across the United States.

They are often organised and amplified on social media platforms driven by algorithms that determine content based on user behaviour.

But a new app that has been tested by nearly 10,000 university students in the US is challenging that approach.

Uplifty AI is encrypted and its founder says the algorithm aims to help students build community in the real world rather than “exploiting attention”.

It is designed for students to organise and meet at events ranging from climate action protests to beach clean-ups and visits to aged care homes. “We are trying to change everything from the ground up,” says Uplifty AI founder Scott Amyx.

Photo: LinkedIn Founded by Scott Amyx, the app is billed as a “post-social media cultural response” that lays the groundwork for “a radical reset of the internet”. “Fundamentally we are trying to change everything from the ground up.

One of those core aspects is the algorithm,” said Amyx, who is also managing partner at Astor Perkins, a New York-based deep tech and sustainability venture capital fund. “Most of the social media algorithm is developed for the purposes of engagement, impression – metrics typical advertisers would look at.

Unfortunately, those are the very things that tend to also create a spiral effect,” he said. “Things tend to be more volatile, provocative, controversial, sometimes exploitative,” he said, adding that this was part of the reason for social media’s Big Tobacco moment.

Amyx was referring to a series of legal battles in the 1990s – collectively known as the tobacco trials – that ultimately held tobacco companies accountable for knowingly selling a product that was harmful.

He said Uplifty AI aimed to do things differently. “What if technology helped people meet in real life instead of keeping them on their phones? “We removed likes and popularity metrics and instead focused on real-world experiences, shared campus challenges and opportunities to meet people offline,” he said. “The platform does not rely on infinite content feeds designed to keep people scrolling, and we avoid algorithmic amplification that rewards extreme emotional content. “Our artificial intelligence is constrained – it

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