BusiSearch

Inspiration

Throughout this COVID-19 pandemic, several local businesses had been shut down due to a lack of in-person shoppers. For many citizens, this resulted in unemployment and financial instability. Up until now, there was no software dedicated to popularize family businesses & provide convenience to users all the same. As our country gradually re-opens, we want to see a Canada where both buyers and spenders can find what they are looking for in a way that is A) Fast, and B) Reliable. With the power of BusiSearch, we can support and grow our local economy to extents that have never been achieved before.

What it does

BusiSearch takes the location of the user as well as some searching parameter to generate a comprehensive list of small businesses that are relevant and close by. The expected result is that the user spends money at these locations more frequently, as this information is much easier to access than a regular Google search that prioritizes larger chains

How we built it

Using our test location of Toronto, the program loops through every possible business in the city and stores the information using CockroachDB. From here, if there are more than 2 businesses with the same name in the city, it will be interpreted as a "chain" and therefore removed from the database. Finally, the user-specified search parameter (taken from our web application) is compared with items in the database, and those businesses that fit the comparison will be shown as output.

Challenges we ran into

Figuring out how to connect our python scripts with a web application developed in JS was quite challenging for us.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Thanks to our use of the Google Maps API, our program is capable of finding small businesses around the user's location - no matter where in the world they are