USD Alumni Turn Social Good Into a Currency

USD alumni Taz de Alencar (BA, Communications Studies '17) and Stephanie Rubinstein (BA, Business '18) are back for more social innovation. Now, they're partnering with USD clubs and units to build a new kind of social currency on campus: social good. Their platform is magic — Magikk to be exact.

Magikk is a community-based platform for the exchange of goods and good deeds. The currency of the platform — called "karma kredits" [sic] — is earned by selling goods, performing good deeds acknowledged by others, or volunteering/attending events. Users can spend these karma kredits by buying goods or rewarding others that perform good deeds.

"I developed this platform as a response to my experience as a University of San Diego student," says de Alencar, "but Magikk is much more of a movement than a platform."

According to the founders, "As college students we become part of a very unique lifestyle. It’s a community of young adults that are living by themselves for the first time, trying to learn and survive essentially. We help each other cook, clean, commute, among many other daily tasks. Naturally, good deeds happen everyday: giving a classmate a ride to school, donating an old surfboard to a friend that’s learning, watching over someone’s dog. But is there a way to quantify those acts of kindness and thus encourage more of them?"

According to De Alencar, "USD breathes entrepreneurship. I had multiple friends start companies throughout college thanks to our resourceful professors. Likewise, USD encourages social entrepreneurship; having many initiatives on campus that promote social awareness. While a student, I really wanted to quantify good deeds within a marketplace that encourages sustainability."

De Alencar and Rubinstein are back for more innovation at USD. Students interested in building their own social innovations while at University of San Diego can enter the Global Social Innovation Challenge.