Next Connect

Inspiration

As young underrepresented women pursuing a career in the STEM field, specifically technology, we have found that through organizations such as Superposition, we have been able to seek support and guidance from various communities as we navigate our journies. Through these communities, we have gained new friendships, mentors, and most importantly guidance on how to navigate professionalism, interviews, internships, resumes, and so much more. Equity is one of our biggest core values, we are passionate about lessening the racial and gender gap within these fields. The importance of finding a community to support and uplift you through your journey is essential and Next Connect makes that easy for you.

What it does

Next Connect is a platform that connects underrepresented students with programs and organizations that aim to provide specialized services and programming to such individuals. We are making it easy for students to discover organizations and vise versa! The platform offers free account creation, recommendations based on the user’s identity, the ability to connect with other users and organizations that will show up in their personalized feed, and personally connect with members of these organizations through a private, responsive messaging system.

How we built it

We started out designing a prototype in Figma. We then began developing a working website with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Bootstrap

Challenges we ran into

After finalizing our prototype, with limiting developing experience we started out with a static site and incorporated bootstrap to mimic the prototype. Bootstrap's documentation and syntax added constraints and limited flexibility.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of creating a platform we wish we had when starting out our journey. We designed a website that is user-friendly, simple, and serves a purpose. As beginners, we are proud of what we have been able to create for this hackathon.

What we learned

We learned the importance and efficiency of teamwork. Creating a product that we're passionate about is exciting. We learned how to turn a prototype into a working product for the first time.

What's next for Next Connect

Next Steps:

Continue on developing a fullstack working website
Onboarding users and organizations onto the platform
Creating a database of organizations, programs, and even hackathons! on the backend
Option to link LinkedIn account
Personalizing feed and recommendations
Incorporating an assistive bot
Expand to partner with companies and corporations to recruit talented, dedicated, and engaged students for internships and employment opportunities.