Campus Rides crosses 300+ users, launches at NED University, and is setting its sights on campuses nationwide — all built by one 19-year-old from FAST-NUCES Karachi.
The Problem No One Was Solving
Every morning in Karachi, thousands of university students wake up to the same dilemma: how do I get to campus affordably, safely, and on time? Rickshaws are unreliable. Buses are overcrowded. Ride-hailing apps burn a hole in a student’s pocket when used daily. And yet — dozens of those students live in the same neighbourhood, heading to the same campus, just minutes apart from each other.
For most students, this is simply the cost of going to class. For Syed Saad Najam, a 19-year-old second-semester BCS student at FAST-NUCES Karachi, it was a problem worth solving.
“I kept seeing the same students waiting for rickshaws every morning while others with cars had empty seats. That disconnect made no sense to me.”
Saad built Campus Rides — Pakistan’s first student-exclusive carpooling web platform — from scratch, as a solo developer, while simultaneously attending university. What started as a local solution for FAST students has now grown into a cross-university movement, with an official launch at NED University of Engineering and Technology and over 300 active users.
300+ Active Users | 2 Universities Live | 19 Founder’s Age |
What is Campus Rides?
Campus Rides (campusrides.vercel.app) is a student-only carpooling platform that connects university students who share commuting routes. Unlike general ride-hailing apps, Campus Rides is a closed, verified network — accessible exclusively to enrolled students. This means every ride you share is with a trusted peer, not a stranger.
The platform supports both car and bike seat sharing, giving it flexibility for students with different commuting needs and budgets. Here is how it works:
- Sign Up: Students register with their university affiliation and get verified
- Post a Ride: Ride providers list their available seats with route, time, price, and gender preferences
- Find a Ride: Students browse available rides filtered by their route and schedule
- Book & Go: Riders book a seat and connect with the provider to coordinate pickup
- Save Money: Fuel costs are split fairly among riders, making daily commutes dramatically cheaper
The Campus Rides platform — showing live rides available to NED University students
The platform features an intuitive ride-listing interface showing live map previews for each route, departure times, seat availability, gender preferences, and pricing — all in a clean, easy-to-use web app. Prices for listed rides range from as low as PKR 68 to PKR 300, making it significantly more affordable than solo ride-hailing alternatives.
From First-Year Student to Platform Founder
Saad is currently in his second semester of a Bachelor’s in Computer Science at FAST-NUCES Karachi — one of Pakistan’s most prestigious technology universities. He is 19 years old. And he has already built and launched a product that is live, growing, and solving a real problem for hundreds of students.
Campus Rides was not the result of a startup competition or a class project. It was built because Saad identified a genuine, daily frustration shared by thousands of students around him and decided to do something about it. Starting with his own campus, he developed the full platform independently — from the database architecture and ride-matching logic to the maps integration and the user interface.
“Building this while in my first year of university was challenging, but seeing students actually use it and save money daily made every late night worth it.”
What makes the story even more compelling is the growth method: zero paid marketing. Every user on Campus Rides arrived through word of mouth, peer sharing, and community trust — the most authentic signal that a product is genuinely useful.
NED University Launch and NSA Endorsement
A major milestone came when Campus Rides officially expanded to NED University of Engineering and Technology — one of Pakistan’s largest and most prominent engineering institutions, with thousands of students commuting daily from across Karachi.
The announcement came through an unexpected but powerful channel: NSA NED (the university’s student body association), one of the most active and respected student societies at NED, officially published a feature post about Campus Rides across its social media pages. The post — titled “Campus Rides: Now at NED University” — highlighted the platform’s key benefits: saving money, saving time, safe travel, and a student-only network.
NSA NED’s official announcement post for Campus Rides — organically shared across NED’s student community
The NSA post garnered organically shared across NED student communities — without any paid promotion. For a platform still in its early stages of growth, this kind of institutional endorsement and community traction is remarkably rare and highly significant.
With the NED expansion, Campus Rides now serves students at two of Karachi’s major universities: FAST-NUCES and NED. Rides are actively being listed and booked for NED campus routes, with multiple providers already offering seats from various parts of Karachi.
Platform Features at a Glance
- Trust & Safety: Student-verified closed network — only enrolled university students can access the platform
- Flexibility: Car and bike seat sharing — flexible options for every budget and preference
- Map Integration: Live map previews for every listed ride route
- Smart Listings: Real-time seat availability, gender preferences, and departure scheduling
- Low Cost: Affordable pricing starting from PKR 68 per ride
- Transparency: View Stops feature to see all pickup/dropoff points on a route
- Accessibility: Mobile-responsive web app — no download required, works on any device
- Live Campuses: Currently live at FAST-NUCES Karachi and NED University
Real Impact on Real Students
The numbers tell a clear story. In a short period since launch, Campus Rides has achieved:
- 300+ registered active users across two universities
- Multiple daily rides listed and booked for NED and FAST campuses
- Rides available at price points as low as PKR 68 — a fraction of daily ride-hailing costs
- Organic growth with zero paid marketing or advertising spend
- Endorsement from NSA NED — one of the university’s biggest student societies
- Coverage on Startup Pakistan — Pakistan’s leading startup media platform
For context: a student commuting daily from a distant neighbourhood to campus on a ride-hailing app might spend PKR 500–1,000 per day. With Campus Rides, that same student could potentially commute for PKR 68–200 — saving thousands of rupees per month. For a university student in Pakistan, that difference is significant.
“This isn’t about disrupting the ride-hailing market. It’s about giving students a smarter, safer, more affordable option that respects their budget and their time.”
The Road Ahead: Expanding Across Pakistan
Campus Rides has only just begun. Saad’s vision extends well beyond Karachi. The long-term roadmap for the platform includes expanding to universities across Pakistan — creating a nationwide, trusted student commuting network.
Target universities for the next phase of expansion include:
- LUMS (Lahore University of Management Sciences), Lahore
- UET (University of Engineering and Technology), Lahore
- COMSATS University, multiple campuses
- IBA Karachi (Institute of Business Administration)
- University of Karachi
- Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad
- NUST (National University of Sciences and Technology), Islamabad
- Bahria University, Karachi and Islamabad
- IBA Sukkur
Beyond geographic expansion, the product roadmap includes deeper features: in-app communication between ride providers and riders, ratings and review systems, recurring ride scheduling for regular commuters, and eventually a mobile application to complement the existing web platform.
The goal, as Saad describes it, is to build “a unified, trusted commuting network connecting students across all of Pakistan’s universities” — a single platform where any student, anywhere in the country, can find a trusted peer heading the same way.
Why Campus Rides Matters for Pakistan’s Startup Ecosystem
Pakistan has a growing and increasingly recognised startup ecosystem — but one that is often dominated by funded ventures, incubator graduates, and experienced founders. Campus Rides represents something different: a first-year university student, 19 years old, identifying a real problem and building a working technical solution, entirely on his own, without any external funding or institutional support.
This is the kind of grassroots innovation that forms the bedrock of any healthy startup culture. The ability to see a daily pain point, translate it into a product, ship it, and grow it — that is the fundamental skill at the heart of entrepreneurship. And Saad has demonstrated it clearly.
Pakistan’s universities are full of students facing the same commuting challenges that inspired Campus Rides. And Pakistan’s startup ecosystem needs more founders who are willing to solve those challenges at the ground level before thinking about funding rounds and valuations.
“The best startup ideas aren’t always the most glamorous ones. They’re the ones that solve a problem you see every single day.”
Join Campus Rides
Campus Rides is live now for students at FAST-NUCES Karachi and NED University. If you are a university student in Karachi — or anywhere in Pakistan — and you are spending too much on your daily commute, Campus Rides wants to connect you with a trusted peer heading exactly where you are going.
campusrides.vercel.app
Share. Save. Connect.
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About the Founder
Syed Saad Najam is a 19-year-old student currently enrolled in his second semester of a Bachelor’s in Computer Science (BCS) at FAST-NUCES Karachi — the National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences. He is the sole founder and developer of Campus Rides. He built the platform from the ground up, including the web application, backend logic, database, map integration, and user experience design. Campus Rides is his first major product, and it is already live with hundreds of users.
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saad-najam-02546a30 | Contact: [email protected] | Karachi, Pakistan
