ProjectHer

Empower Her dreams, Inspire Her journey, Project Her future.

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Inspiration

As first-year Software Engineering students who committed to our area of study for the next five years only a year ago, we were no strangers to feeling uncertain about our path in a field where girls like us tended to be underrepresented. This motivated us to create ProjectHer: a web app that Projects inspirational stories of Her future, helping girls and other underrepresented people visualize their futures, and encouraging them to pursue their interests in tech and beyond!

What it does

ProjectHer prompts users with a few simple questions (such as their name, interests, and aspirations) to create personalized stories about their future in their chosen fields. Users can browse through an interactive storybook, envisioning their ideal futures and inspiring themselves to dream even bigger.

How we built it

Frontend: We used React to create a dynamic and interactive user interface, and Sass to enhance our styling process.

Backend: For the server-side, we chose Flask to handle API requests and manage user interactions. The Cohere API was integrated to provide natural language processing capabilities, allowing us to generate personalized stories based on user inputs. We utilized SQLAlchemy as our ORM for efficient database management, facilitating smooth data interactions.

Challenges we ran into

We faced several challenges during development, including creating and styling the storybook to fit our needs, connecting user-inputted answers to the prompts designed for the Cohere API, and displaying the generated output in the virtual storybook. Additionally, we were learning new skills, as it was our first time using Flask and React. We also encountered frequent code crashes when trying to connect to the backend, which added to the complexity of our project.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We created an interactive storybook with a nice user interface for the questions. We also conquered back end development as two hackers who have mainly focused on front end in the past!

What we learned

We jumped into backend development by learning Flask, which included setting up routes, handling API requests, and working with SQLAlchemy for database management. Along the way, we faced plenty of challenges that really tested our patience. Thus, we got better at debugging by breaking down problems step by step and figuring out what went wrong.

What's next for ProjectHer

We aim to add visually appealing illustrations to enhance storytelling and implement speech-to-text features for greater accessibility. We also plan to ensure the platform is fully responsive across devices and make it more inclusive and helpful for specific minority groups, tailoring content to better support their unique aspirations and challenges.

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