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Assignment: Radio is where you'll find news and public affairs content produced by students studying journalism and/or broadcasting at the University of Oklahoma's Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication. Some of these student-produced news reports focus on issues and events on the OU campus; others have a broader interest.

Abandoning Politics For Software, University Of Oklahoma Student Still Aspires To Help Others

Moses Lauder

22-year-old Scott Wilson's room is filled with graffiti art, martial arts metals and a giant bookcase of books from the Charisma Myth series to The Lord Of The Rings. He takes pride in his varied interests, and strives to master as many of them as he can. That Renaissance worldview carries over into his educational and professional life.

Wilson co-founded CircaTree, a business that helps connect programmers and app creators with customers who have specific needs. But he didn't always want to be an entrepreneur -  he started out in politics. 

"I didn’t have a specific job, if you will," Wilson said. "I wanted to have the greatest impact that was possible, in whatever form that might take."

Although he learned a lot through politics and political science, he said that he couldn't make the change he wants through politics.

"See, the difference between political science and politics is political science is the study of why people do the things that they do," he said. "And politics is how people are doing things today. I wanted to help change the way we do things, and make them better.  And politics, as everyone is obviously aware, does not do that very well."

So he transitioned to software. He and his friend Moses Lauder set out to find programmers to help with their ideas for fitness and social networking apps. That's where CircaTree comes in - what he calls a digital infrastructure for software development.

"There are so many things that need to be made better by digital technology that just haven’t been done yet," Wilson said. "It's all new. No one has perfected it yet. So all we do is as a business, we find a need, and then we have developers already ready to meet that need."

Lessons he learned in politics - networking, relationships, personal interaction skills - all translate to his goal of working for the benefit of others and trusting that their effort will make it better.

"Every commercial that you watch, every brand that you pick, every item that you consider is influenced by digital networking and being able to harness that effectively is limitless in its potential,: Wilson said. "You can go on Facebook and say ‘Hey this is something really exciting that happened to me today, look world this is something that we can all be proud of’ and people will read it and you know what? I bet they’ll like that. I bet they’ll be encouraged by that. Your potential for impact is as great as you let it be."

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