HomeShare

The hero part of the main page - you can redirect to the main search page from here
If you scroll down, you will see a map that shows you the closest houses and you will also see a search by location area.
A bit lower is the "host of the month" part that can only use the username of the host(for privacy) and mainly is to appreciate them.
At the bottom of the page, we can see the footer that facilitate navigation through the app
This is the about us page which gives the user a brief summary of what we've done and why we've done that
This page is for donation; for people who wants to help but cannot provide a house. They can subscribe monthly or just for once.
This is the main search page. You can describe your situation in the text file and we extract the essential entities to assign you to a host
The page shows the host that can provide a suitable place for you and a brief description about him&If you want to contact him, press button
This pop up menu is here to show you that we've shared your information with the host and he will contact with you.

Inspiration

Amidst the devastation of natural disasters in Syria and Turkey, we saw an opportunity to make a difference. Through research, we found that the resources for those people are extremely rare and in many cases not very user-friendly, so we knew that we could be the change that was desperately needed. In 2021, it was estimated that Over 100 million people worldwide have been forced to leave their homes due to conflict and natural disasters, and it's up to us to step up and help. Our vision is to provide a platform where anyone can find a temporary home in their time of forced migration needs. We believe that even small acts of kindness can make a huge impact. For instance, when my family and I arrived in Canada as immigrants, we were blessed to have friends who gave us a place to stay while my dad secured a job. It made all the difference, and we want to pay it forward. We hope to amplify the impact of small acts of kindness, to uplift and motivate each other as a unit.

What it does

Essentially, our website resembles Airbnb but without any cost and with a limit on the length of stay. This means that there is a registration process for Hosts, who volunteer to share their place or a part of their place with as many people as they desire, for a limited time. There is also a registration process for Guests, who are individuals forcibly displaced due to natural disasters or war. As part of the registration process, we obtain personal information and verify documentation for safety purposes. Later, Guests have the option of typing their situation in a super vague and raw form. Using Natural Language Processing, we find the ideal Host for them. Guests can take a look at the suggested Host's portfolio, and if they're interested, they can notify the Host with just one click. If the Host is also interested, they can approve the case, and the Guest can move in for the indicated period of time. Additionally, We provide opportunities for people who have received help and were successful to donate and fund our project, in addition to anyone else willing to donate.

How we built it

The front-end part of our project has been done using react js and for its design, we've used CSS. The required and relative fetched data are stored in a JSON file. Our server is based on Flask and we handled the requests there; however, the API callings and text filtering are located in a different Python file. We used BrowserRouter to switch between pages and used Cohere API to analyze the given text and extract the needed entities (to find the appropriate host). At the end of the host-searching process, there is also an option to contact the host which we handled this request using Twilio API so that we can provide a secure connection between host and guest without revealing their information.

Challenges we ran into

We had endless challenges but shoutout to Youtube and the mentors they pushed us through the challenges and we learned a ton! One of the biggest challenges we faced was using Flask to write into the JSON file that would later get fetched to display the entity extracted using the CohereAI API. Generally finding and successfully installing all packages necessary, was challenging.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Absolutely everything! The team dynamic was great, we had a good time. We were super proud to create a presentable website especially since this was our first-time programming frontend in ReactJS. Additionally, we were thrilled to implement both Cohere and Twilio APIs in our project within 24 hours. Overall, just having a final full-stack product is extremely satisfying!

What we learned

We discovered that when working on a project that ignites our passion, it's easy to get carried away and expand on ideas to a point where execution becomes impossible. We realized that taking small steps towards our ultimate goal is a more effective approach, with our vision serving as a driving force to push us forward during moments of exhaustion and discouragement. Through this experience, we embraced the idea that small, consistent progress over time is more achievable than attempting a giant leap that's beyond our scope. By adopting a "baby steps" mindset, we were able to remain focused, motivated, and ultimately achieve our goals.

What's next for HomeShare

The future is BEYOND bright for HomeShare! We are planning on using Facebook's Rekognition algorithm to convert images of users' IDs into text, and using CohereAI to verify their identities to increase the security of our services. Additionally, we are planning on reaching out to Airbnb for potential collaboration. Many Airbnb properties have limited demand in low seasons, therefore, during those times Airbnb can reach out to Hosts that have properties near areas with high need demand on HomeShare, to ask if they are willing to volunteer their place for the period it hasn't been booked. Moreover, with the tool of Twilio we have infinite opportunities to easily connect our hosts with their guests, and guests with other guests that are fleeing the same areas and moving into a similar location! Last but not least expanding the languages our website can operate with is going to be another future extension. We want our NLP to have high accuracy and efficiency in as many languages as possible! I think that is enough enthusiasm for now i hope you are convinced that HomeShare has a bright future ;)

Thank you so much for taking the time to read more about our project hope you enjoyed it!