Student Blog

3min read

Navigating the myriad classrooms here at APU, especially as a freshman on your first day, can be a bit overwhelming with all the new classrooms you need to find. Even as a sixth-semester student, I occasionally find myself struggling to find classrooms for my courses at the start of each semester.

The Making of Class Doko

Recognizing this common problem of getting lost or being late to class, APU graduate Meheraz Tiash devised an ingenious solution: a website similar to the trusted navigation tool that APU students rely on here in Beppu—Bus Doko*1. Bus Doko is a bus location system that allows you to search for routes, times, and fares. Just like Bus Doko helps with buses, Class Doko helps students navigate their way to classrooms. Tiash came up with this idea in his sixth semester and turned it into reality by his seventh.

The idea came to Tiash during a brainstorming session with his Bangladeshi friend, Iftikhar Mahmud, a software engineering student at International Islamic University Chittagong. Together, they developed the initial framework for the website.

How to Use Class Doko

Here's how to use Class Doko:

1. First, access the Class Doko website.
2. Then, type either the "course name" or "professor's name" into the search bar.

APU offers around 3,000 classes, so to ensure smooth performance and avoid crashes, Class Doko only displays course information within 40 minutes of a class start time—an adjustment made after observing that most students checked the site between 30 to 40 minutes before class.

Class Doko: The Path to Sustainability

To further enhance usability, the Class Doko team is also planning to introduce clickable email links for instructors and TAs. These will open Outlook with the recipient’s email address already filled in. Faculty emails will be updated each semester through APU’s database, while TA information will be verified through student submissions and cross-checked before being added.

Since Tiash was close to graduating when he launched Class Doko, he wanted to ensure the project would live on beyond his graduation from APU. To this end, he founded a club dedicated to maintaining the website and hosting tech-related workshops. In Fall 2024, Class Doko organized a design workshop featuring Annie Hoang, an APU graduate and founder of Creaba, and Arham Shams, a graphic designer from the University of Texas at Arlington.

As these workshops are costly and Tiash had a vision of expanding Class Doko beyond just a club, the team applied for Project B funding in Fall 2024. Project B helps bring APU students’ unique project ideas to life. Their efforts paid off—Class Doko was one of three winners of this prestigious APU funding for student organizations.

“It was a long and arduous process, making time to prepare the presentation for Project B in the middle of finals and mid-terms,” said Reggie Dolorosa, one of Class Doko’s core members. “But everyone gave their best, especially because of how flexible and supportive Tiash was. That really inspired us to push through and eventually win.”

Class Doko’s members

Today, Tiash and his team continue working hard to gather user data and improve Class Doko’s functionality. They encourage more students at APU to use the platform so it can evolve into an even more refined and student-friendly tool. From a simple website to help students find their classrooms to a recognized club hosting tech workshops and winning competitive funding, Class Doko stands as a testament to the innovation APU aims to cultivate in its students—even in solving everyday campus problems.

Class Doko’s Project B presentation

Rahman Mir Mustaufiq

Hello, everyone! I'm Razin, a second year APM student. If you enjoy discussing Marxism or reading fictional novels, feel free to say hi when you see me on campus. I'm excited to promote APU through my SPA articles, especially through the perspective of all my peers!