RENEW Jersey

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RENEW Jersey Pitch Deck Cover

Inspiration

Driven by a commitment to hack and innovate for social good, our group embarked on a journey to identify and address one of the most pressing social challenges in Ewing Township and neighboring municipalities. Our research unearthed a pervasive issue plaguing Trenton, the Capital City of New Jersey: the overwhelming prevalence of abandoned and blighted properties. This longstanding problem has inflicted severe consequences on surrounding communities, including heightened crime rates, fire hazards, deteriorating public health, property devaluation, and diminished municipal tax revenue.

In response to this crisis, the city council introduced the New Beginnings Housing Program in 2022. This initiative aimed to empower qualified residents and aspiring homeowners to revitalize abandoned city-owned properties in designated redevelopment areas. However, progress has been sluggish, with only one property serviced thus far and little clarity on the program's future direction, despite community anticipation.

Recognizing the city council's challenges in scaling and sustaining these efforts due to financial constraints, as acknowledged by Mayor Reed Gusciora, our group saw an opportunity to pioneer alternative financing solutions.

What it does

RENEW Jersey is a community-based equity crowdfunding platform facilitating urban renewal and job creation. Utilizing smart contracts, it channels invested funds to local contractors and businesses for refurbishing abandoned properties.

How we built it

Our development process centered around creating a robust web-based application using a stack of technologies including JavaScript, React, Express.js, Node.js, Mongoose, Ethers, Hardhat.js, and Material UI. This platform enables municipal officials to list refurbishment projects and allows the public to invest in them.

Central to our data management strategy is MongoDB, which acts as the backbone of our system. Leveraging MongoDB, we efficiently manage property information within our primary database, named 'Listing Tracking.' This database allows us to store and retrieve crucial details such as property images, contractor names, and associated metadata. With MongoDB's powerful querying capabilities, we can easily identify blighted or abandoned properties with a simple command.

Complementing our primary database is 'Contractors Management,' our secondary database. This database facilitates the identification of eligible businesses and local contractors who can receive funds for their services in redeveloping blighted properties. MongoDB's flexibility enables effective management of recipients' details and financial accounts. Moreover, MongoDB seamlessly integrates with blockchain technology, ensuring transparency and security in fund disbursement. By linking recipient information with blockchain transactions, we can monitor fund utilization via transactions on the ledger in real-time.

In addition to our database setup, we developed a smart contract to further enhance transparency and accountability in fund utilization. This smart contract allows municipal officials to specify the estimated refurbishment costs for abandoned property redevelopment and the list of licensed local contractors and businesses eligible to receive invested funds. Once the target investment amount is reached, funds can only be spent on services provided by pre-approved entities, enforced by the trustless automatic enforcement protocol of our smart contract. Furthermore, all transaction records on the ledger are immutable and publicly available, enabling public scrutiny and deterring misappropriation.

Through meticulous planning and implementation, we have created a comprehensive solution that not only addresses the challenges of abandoned property refurbishment but also ensures transparency, accountability, and community involvement in the revitalization process.

Challenges we ran into

Our challenges primarily stemmed from our lack of prior experience in certain technical domains. Crafting a blockchain smart contract for the first time demanded a steep learning curve as we navigated the complexities of this novel blockchain technology. Figuring out data base interactions with the smart contract was an obstacle as well as we had to reflect the changes to the smart contract in real time. Additionally, the lack of a team member proficient in front-end development posed a significant hurdle. To make up for that lack, our technical team member, with limited experience in JavaScript, courageously undertook the responsibility of developing the front-end of our web application. Despite these challenges, our team remained resilient and committed to overcoming every obstacle in pursuit of our shared vision, by diligently learning the ropes and finding our own answers along the way.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Producing a fully functional prototype, integrated with smart contracts, in under a day with huge potential to spur community engagement and make a considerable social impact.

What we learned

Insights into the type of pressing civic problems faced by residents and communities in New Jersey, inadequacies in the city council's existing programs, as well as how a smart contract works, how they are deployed, and how they can be used to enforce transparency in the utilization of funds.

What's Next for RENEW Jersey

Moving forward, we hope to expand this project to encompass other municipalities across New Jersey grappling with the same abandoned property crisis. Our goal is to collaborate closely with city councils and local authorities to establish a comprehensive depository of abandoned properties throughout the state.

Overall, we envision RENEW Jersey becoming a catalyst for positive change, driving impactful revitalization efforts and fostering economic growth in distressed areas across the state. Through strategic partnerships and community engagement, we believe we can make a lasting difference in the lives of New Jersey residents and contribute to the overall well-being of our communities.