OFFRes + OFFPay

Inspiration

As students who personally experienced Hurricane Helene in 2024, we were part of the Augusta community that faced prolonged power outages, loss of internet access, and limited access to essential resources, highlighting how vulnerable modern systems become during disasters. This inspired us to rethink the traditional concept of a survival kit by developing a modern, digital solution that goes beyond physical tools. OFFRes + OFFPay is designed as an intelligent survival system that integrates offline payments, resource mapping, and a lightweight, survival-trained LLM to provide real-time assistance without internet connectivity. By combining secure transactions, accessible resource information, and AI-driven guidance, our solution ensures that individuals and communities can remain connected, informed, and operational even in the most challenging emergency situations.

What it does

OFFRes + OFFPay is a comprehensive, disaster-ready digital survival system that enables individuals and vendors to operate effectively without internet connectivity. The platform provides an offline geo-mapping feature to locate nearby essential resources such as water, medical facilities, and supply points, alongside a secure offline wallet that supports encrypted transactions and voucher-based payments to maintain economic activity during outages. Additionally, it integrates a lightweight, survival-trained LLM (TinyLlama) that delivers real-time guidance, emergency information, and decision support directly on-device. By combining resource accessibility, secure offline payments, and intelligent assistance into one unified solution, OFFRes + OFFPay ensures communities remain connected, resilient, and self-sufficient during disasters.

How we built it

We created our repository and code locally on our laptops. We implemented every feature in feature branches, pushed it to a dev branch, and once everything worked on the dev branch, we pushed it to our main branch. We then set up the hardware, including the Raspberry Pi, power bank, and touch screen. We cloned our repository on the Raspberry Pi and set everything up locally. We implemented a keyboard and installed the LLM on the Raspberry Pi. Once we set it all up, we pushed our final changes to the GitHub repository.

Challenges we ran into

Our first major challenge was getting a working scanner on our OFFPay app and a scannable QR code on our OFFRes app. Our camera wouldn't show on the screen, and when we moved it to mobile, we had to change our http to https. Then the QR code wouldn't generate scannable QR codes. Our next major challenge was getting the LLM to work on our Raspberry Pi, it would get our prompt, but wouldn't generate. The next major challenge was getting a working keyboard on our Touchscreen. The keyboard either never showed up when we would click a textbox, or it would display a white screen.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We were able to debug every major problem we ran into, which led to a fully functional project. What we are most proud of is our perseverance to finish the project. We worked nonstop from sundown to sunrise until we had a fully functioning project.

What we learned

We learned how to work as one unit. Each person played a crucial part, and the project would not have gotten done without every valuable member of our team

What's next for OFFRes + OFFPay

OFFRes + OFFPay is built on a strong foundational prototype with significant potential for scalability and real-world impact. Moving forward, our focus is on expanding functionality to enhance accessibility, usability, and adoption beyond its current scope. We aim to evolve the platform into a widely deployable solution that serves diverse communities, not limited to specific financial ecosystems, by integrating broader payment compatibility and partnerships. Additionally, we plan to introduce advanced features such as AI-powered visual recognition through camera integration with voice assistance, enabling users to analyze resources or situations in real time. Future development will also include a built-in radio communication system to support safety, coordination, and information sharing during outages. Our long-term vision is to redefine traditional survival tools by delivering a modern, intelligent, and user-friendly digital ecosystem that empowers individuals and communities with reliable support when they need it most.