Website Helps Sparks Fly Between Students

There’s that guy in section who always seems to be looking your way, but you’re not sure if it’s your imagination. There’s that girl you talked to at a party last weekend, but you can’t tell whether she’d be down to meet up again.

Two CS50 students have a solution for those tricky situations: CrimsonSpark. This website allows users to express their interest in other Harvard students by “sparking” them. Users then receive a notification if the feelings are mutual. Since its launch on Monday night, CrimsonSpark has attracted more than 800 users, 1,800 "sparks," and 300 matches between students who each sparked each other, according to the website's homepage.

Co-creators Benjamin L. Enowitz ’12 and Aaron E. Watanabe ’14 built the site as their CS50 final project. “There’s a lot of asymmetric information in the dating market,” Enowitz said. “We felt that you could preserve all the fun and the flirting and getting to know people, but have information be more transparent.”

Each user creates a profile—picture optional—and searches for people to spark based on gender, class, House, or dorm. But the idea is not to “randomly scroll through people and just spark anyone,” Enowitz said. “We see the site as a way to develop relationships that already exist, and not to form new ones.”

Curious about whether that cutie likes you back? Sign up and wait for “Harvard’s Digital Wingman,” as CrimsonSpark bills itself, to let you know.