Reclaiming History

We aim to make a positive change in our community through land reparations to improve the lives of thousands of underprivileged children around the world through donations and community building!

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Inspiration

I'm Pratyush, a freshman in high school, and I decided to build this project under a rather unique inspiration! I was watching this documentary about how unfair land grabbing in the rural United States and other countries was such a big problem, creating conflict, fear, and pain for the deserving people who had rightful ownership of their land. For the next few days, I was so hung up about how this problem was happening in real life today, and how it could be affecting innocent families and children! I did some research on land grabbing and found out that 81 million acres were sold off due to land grabbing, some of them unfair! (I included this statistic in my presentation). I decided that I wanted to help these people in any way that I could, and wanted to build an app where like-minded people could help donate and petition towards giving back land to their rightful owners. I believed that if I built an app like this, I wouldn't have to watch any more painful documentaries like the one that inspired me to build Reclaiming History.

What it does

My solution to land grabbing is a land reparations social media/Google Maps app that aims to rectify these inequalities by returning land to rightful families and owners, fostering economic growth, and promoting social equality. Through this app, generous people worldwide are allowed to come together, donate, and actively participate in building communities to bring justice to unfairly taken land. Users have the power to make a tangible difference by supporting land reparations and fostering equitable access to land for marginalized communities.

How we built it

I spent a lot of late nights thinking about how I could accomplish building a prototype with the time I had. I believed a small prototype would be necessary to gain attraction. Once that would be completed, I could start implementing other background features. To build the graphics, I used a UI graphic program called UIzard, and have started working on a Unity project with implementations of the Google Maps interface, PayPal donation portal, and OAuth integration.

Challenges we ran into

Iran into problems when I started building the UI. I didn't know how to make it as sleek and aesthetically pleasing as possible. I ended up researching how to make an aesthetically pleasing mobile app. In retrospect, I think it looks really good now that I'm done building the prototype graphic design! In terms of the hackathon, we wanted to cater this app to youth worldwide, however, we had to figure out a way to target a broader spectrum of people. We ended up just rebranding our project towards "families and children worldwide".

Accomplishments that we're proud of

As we're still in the prototype stage, I am very proud that I can showcase my efforts and progress through this hackathon! I believe that taking the initiative is the hardest part of anything you do in life, whether it be inventing something or building a social service product. We hope that with this app, we can give back land to deserving families and children. That will be the biggest accomplishment of all.

What we learned

Through this project, I've learned the importance of community engagement, accountability, and thinking outside the box. I've discovered the profound impact of collective action and initiative and how, when someone puts their mind to it, can achieve anything.

What's next for Reclaiming History

What's next? I believe that with the help gained from this hackathon, "Reclaiming History" can gain the essential attention and social traction it needs to propel itself higher. With this newfound attention, we will be able to turn our youth social service app into a tool families can use to regain their land, and where generous individuals can help others. I wish to leave an impact on society with "Reclaiming History", and I hope people worldwide will see how essential my mission is to create a better world.

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