FreeMe!

Inspiration

We found that mothers in shelters are often trapped in a cycle of constant caregiving, without a safe or trusted place to leave their children, making it difficult to access opportunities that come up suddenly (such as attending a job interview) or even step away for themselves. Though these women may have plans for long-term child care, short notice childcare is hard to come by or unaffordable. Over time, this creates a loop of “survival mode” where they are unable to reconnect with who they are beyond being a mother. At the same time, available childcare options are difficult to navigate due to key barriers of time, distance, money, language, and trust, which leaving a critical gap in accessibility.

What it does

FreeMe! is a real-time discovery tool for free or low-cost community children's programs that can would allow mothers to leave their children somewhere fun, safe and engaging for their required time slot. The programs are trustworthy as they are verified to be run by credible programs before entering our database. Our key functions:

Streamline the tedious searching process for mothers who aren't tech savvy or have a language barrier
Provide trustworthy choices, eliminating anxiety and decision fatigue
Focus on free/low cost, last-minute options
Maximizes underused community resources such as drop-in programs, after school camps, youth groups, etc. by connecting them to those who need them most

How we built it

we used figma to design prototypes for the website landing page and results page. Specifically. we used figma make to create the low-fi layouts and hand designed background elements, texts, subheadings, aesthetic elements, etc.
we imported the figma prototypes into VSCode, and employed AI's help in turning the layouts into an interactive web page with clickable elements
Images are either from Google or ChatGPT
Sample data set is created by ChatGPT

Challenges we ran into

As beginners with limited/no experience with either figma or vscode, the inevitable learning curve meant that we can either choose to emphasize the Figma prototype, sacrificing functionality for polished visuals, or vise versa. We also received conflicting advise from mentors about what is the most important element. In the end, we attempted to blend the two as best we can, but ultimately chose to invest more time into the coded element.
A lot of our time was spent on trial and error as we tried to navigate figma and vscode for the first time. Often, we were unaware of shortcuts and various available features of the program, leading to wasted energy on details or errors we don't even know how to approach.
We had a lot of issues syncing the VSCode across the two coder's laptops -- specifically, for one of us the mock webpage never loaded, and colleague's work never showed up in the pull tab. In the end, we resorted to one person doing the coding and the other assisting through creating reference photos, datasets, etc.
because nobody on the team are particularly experienced with any aspect (pitching, PM, front end/back end, UI/UX), so we didn't have a defined split. Everybody tried to contribute where they can. However, this sometimes led to accidental work overlaps and difficulty in idea cohesion.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

first, we are proud of how the problem and affected demographic we identified is truly specific and targeted
we are proud of our idea! Its functions are defined and it has tailored features which don't overlap with any pre-existent programs.
while we used mock data for the demo, we believe that our program is feasible and realistic to use in real life.
our team members learned two new software in 24 hours and created a convincing product!

What we learned

How to prioritize under time and skill constraints
It is necessary to keep in touch with team mates constantly and update each other on progress or new ideas
how to efficiently learn grasp the basics of a software so that it is usable, without getting tangled up in details
how to compromise so everyone's vision is included

What's next for FreeMe!

Fleshing out a system to verify organizations
Implement this to all shelters around Vancouver
scaling to other communities
securing partnerships with other verified organizations to provide discounts or benefits for mothers in shelters In fact, while we built the website around the needs of mothers in shelters, the general idea might be appreciated by a wider audience as well. We're sure mother everywhere would love a platform to look for after school activities for their children, and they would appreciate the convenience offered by our filtering tool. We could consider