Gemini Docs ✨

A lifesaver for first-generation and international students!

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The Inspiration Behind Our Journey

Many First Gen students lack the support and guidance required to help them navigate through complex legal processes, which can bar them from accessing vital opportunities for education and advancement. Parents may only offer limited assistance as well, due to unfamiliarity with the system or language barriers. With Gemini Docs, we hope to bridge this gap by developing a platform that provides tailored assistance to First Gen students with preparing the necessary documentation that will enhance their chances of attending their dream U.S. institution. Gemini Docs is a tool meant to help break down the challenges of filling out complex forms, and assisting students with document completion. By empathizing with the struggles of both first-generation and international students alike in navigating foreign climates on their own, we felt inspired to develop a platform that helped simplify the educational journey for students.

Making Educational Opportunities More Accessible

Gemini Doc’s goal is to streamline the process of helping students secure acceptance to their desired U.S. institutions, making educational opportunities more accessible for first-generation students. With Gemini Docs, we hope to create a platform that can provide the Most Potential to Community Impact to students, by providing tailored assistance and resources in navigating the U.S. educational system, and empowering First Gen students to navigate these challenges with confidence as they pursue education and professional advancement.

How Gemini Docs Streamlines your Journey

A step-by-step guide to studying in the U.S.

Gemini Docs simplifies a student’s journey to studying in the U.S. by ensuring they meet admission requirements, assisting them with applying for funding, and guiding them through the Visa application process required for their chosen institution. Gemini Docs provides information, reminders, and a step-by-step guide on how to apply for college, FAFSA, and obtaining a Visa. Featuring our AI chatbot, Gemini AI, students have 24/7 access to a virtual assistant that will help provide answers to any questions students may have about their applications! Gemini Docs also includes a built-in calendar and to-do list to assist students in staying organized and on top of deadlines. Our platform aims to be a student’s personal guide to educational success, by helping them prepare the necessary documentation that will enhance their chances of obtaining a Visa and realizing their dreams of studying in the U.S.!

From Idea to Reality

UX Designers: As UX designers, our journey began with research to understand the unique challenges faced by first-generation and international students in navigating processes like FAFSA, college applications, and VISA applications. With a clear problem statement in mind, we utilized FigJam for collaborative brainstorming sessions, allowing us to ideate and refine our concepts effectively. Developing personas helped us empathize with our target users, ensuring that our platform would meet their specific needs and pain points. We then created paper prototypes to visualize and iterate on our platform's structure and features. Transitioning to hi-fi designs, we focused on creating intuitive interfaces and seamless user experiences. Once the designs were finalized, we handed them over to our development team.

Backend: Backend team had chosen the FastAPI framework due to our familiarity with Python. The first few tasks we had considered included Infrastruture, Logins (Google and Non-Google), Gemini routing, User storage. For User storage, we used the MongoDB database to store user information as users sign in. With Gemini, we wanted to integrate Retrieval-Augmented Generation (or RAG) to search over a user's uploaded document and assist with our targeted documents. RAG would require many tools, such as LangChain, the Qdrant vector database, and PyPDF for file parsing. We laid out our plan over a Full System Architecture brainstorm session and got to work. We had split tasks among our team, but were always available to assist each other. We had also supported the Frontend team with hooking up both ends together.

  • Khai: Backend Manager, Infrastructure, Trello board, Gemini file upload and RAG using LangChain, Qdrant, PyPDF
  • Mathew: Non-Google user logins and storage on MongoDB, Global state management on frontend using Context API, Gemini routing, Chat history
  • Preston: Google OAuth login, Google Calendar Event Creation using Calendar API

Challenges Encountered

UX Designers: Balancing simplicity with comprehensive features posed a hurdle, as we aimed to provide clear explanations and instructions without overwhelming users. Collaborating remotely also presented challenges in communication and coordination, requiring us to make use of digital tools effectively. Additionally, integrating complex functionalities such as Gemini, our intelligent chatbot, while maintaining a seamless user experience required meticulous planning.

Frontend: The front-end team encountered many challenges early on, especially with adjusting to using NextJS for the first time. In addition to our surprise, we also discovered that in order to interact with Designers and to integrate their beautiful designs seamlessly onto a website, the front-end team was also required to learn Figma to a certain extent. Thus, we learned early on that coding and aesthetic design required very different skill sets, as time was needed to understand new tools from different disciplines, and attention to detail was required to integrate the designs seamlessly onto a website. Other issues included the team’s inability to pass file data to the backend as an API request using regular JSON. Luckily, with a communicative team that provided ready and steadfast support, we were able to find an alternative approach to sending file data. Unfortunately, this alternative did compromise some parts of the original design and functionality we intended for the chatbot, but we’re still content with the final results!

Backend: Our team had faced many issues with our parts. Preston faced difficulty with translating the Google OAuth flow for FastAPI, and development workflow, having little experience working in a Fullstack team. Khai found challenges working with RAG, with this project being his first exposure to implementing it. In the end, our teamwork and communication through GitHub and Discord helped us develop the backend piece-by-piece.

Proud Accomplishments

UX Designers: We poured our hearts into making this platform a game-changer for students! We're especially proud of how we tackled those notoriously confusing applications (FAFSA and visas) by designing interfaces that feel intuitive and user-friendly. Instead of one-size-fits-all, we built this platform with real students in mind. By creating detailed personas and refining our designs, we made sure it truly addresses user’s needs. Also achieving seamless collaboration among team members despite remote work challenges underscores our adaptability and teamwork skills.

Frontend: There were so many designs to implement, so getting it all done before the deadline was a proud accomplishment, we didn’t know if we’d be able to finish in time. Also the overall look of the website is amazing, and it really shows our hard work so we’re proud of that. We were able to implement all of the main functionality that we discussed. We also learned so much throughout the process, especially about the skills it takes to transform a design into a real website.

Backend: Our team is proud of the infrastructure we setup through FastAPI. The backend routes work as intended for the most part. Khai was able to get the RAG implemented and our chatbot works beautifully! Mathew excellently handled user logins, user storage, and the foundation of our Gemini integration. Preston successfully setup Google OAuth and Google Calendar Event creation for testing.

Key Takeaways

UX Designers: Through this hackathon experience as UX designers, we've gained invaluable insights and lessons. Firstly, we learned the importance of iterative design, refining our designs made our platform better. Secondly, collaborating effectively in a remote environment taught us the value of clear communication, shared tools, and maintaining team spirit for successful project execution. And lastly, this project was all about helping first-gen and international students. By putting ourselves in their shoes, we realized that design with empathy is the key to creating products that truly make a difference.

Frontend: We now know that if we are working to implement polished designs made by real designers, it will take a lot more time to code than expected, so we will be more prepared for the time investment in the future. We both learned a significant deal about implementing design and learned key skills in NextJS.

Backend: Each member of the team gained valuable knowledge from this project venture, and have all become better developers from it. Working with and integrating Gemini was a key learning experience for the team. Preston learned tremendously about backend development, with almost all tools and APIs being completely new to him. Khai researched into RAG, learning the ins-and-outs, as well as the tools needed to help bring the feature into the project. Mathew got to understand and develop state management in React, as well as MongoDB interfacing.

What's next for Gemini Docs ✨

As we continue developing Gemini Docs, we hope to implement features we saved for our stretch goals, including:

  • A feature that helps students autofill responses on their applications

  • A college application tracker to help students stay informed about college application deadlines, and when they can expect a response from their desired institution

  • A Gemini Visa mock-interview feature to help students build confidence for their Visa interviews, providing actionable feedback to secure their chances of obtaining a Visa

UX Designers: Moving forward with Gemini Docs, our focus will be on dedicating more time to comprehensive user testing, ensuring that our platform meets the evolving needs of our diverse user base effectively. We aim to incorporate user feedback iteratively, refining features and interfaces to enhance usability and overall user satisfaction.

Frontend We’d like to improve the chatbot’s user experience. Ways we plan to do this is by having the user’s message appear first, and then have a loading feature while waiting for the chatbot to respond.

Backend: With more time, we would like to fully deploy the Google Signins with Google Calendar Event exporting, by setting the project into production. We also wanted to spend more time with the document scanning.

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