Inspiration
Over the past year, one thing is certain: the Covid-19 Pandemic has greatly impacted our lives, be it emotionally, physically, and fiscally. With widespread city lockdowns globally, but especially within England, travel bans, and a need for increased social distancing measures, many businesses and their employees have suffered from staggering amounts of frozen wages, pay cuts, and unemployment. Consequently, many have found themselves in forms of homelessness, with quick-onset homelessness on the rise within England.
In light of this, we would like to build a platform to help the homeless find short-term accommodation by pairing those in need with volunteers/ hotels or hostels with low occupancy rate, and offer free resources for them to learn new, in-demand skills.
What it does
- User can register for an account (as volunteer/ donor/ help-seeker) and log in
Help-seeker
During onboarding, users can (1) customize their profile and input their expertise/ skills (2) indicate what type of help they needed (accommodation/ cash support, etc)
On the home page, users can create a help page to find accommodation/ raise funds and access the resources page for a range of free courses (Upwork)
Job search information panel
Volunteer/ donor
- Volunteer/ donors can browse help pages and tap the message me button on the help page and donate money or offer help via private chat
How we built it
Front-end development using html, css
Back-end development using python, mongodb
Challenges we ran into
The "time crunch" was our main challenge.
We are an international team spanning 3 time zones, and not all developers were awake at the same time. We tackled this problem through effective communication channels (Discord, Google Meet) and Google Cloud storage synchronization.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We built an app (in a short span of time)! We established a social platform for those experiencing the adverse effects of homelessness and those interested in providing support. By potential partnerships with local co-ops and pre-existing national homeless resource networks, our platform is both scalable and high-impact.
What we learned
Some of our developers are new to MongoDB and database, back-end development, so they learned a lot! We were also all able to become more educated on the broad-reaching, societal impacts of homelessness and the Covid-19 Pandemic. As an international team, it was an enriching experience to increase our global context and awareness. This Pandemic is impacting each and every one of us. If we all work together to alleviate hardship, in this case, housing and fiscal insecurity, we can make the world a better place with intentional impact.
What's next for AssistUp
We would like to incorporate a "vetting" process for both those offering and seeking help. While privacy and safety are already paramount concerns for AssistUp's platform, we foresee a future need to amplify our security measures to ensure an equitable, safe platform for all.
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