Soar | Devpost

Log in Page
University of Florida Community Group Page
Matchmaking Info Page
Main Page

Inspiration

Soar is inspired by the need for a more authentic and inclusive online community between women and gender minorities in male-dominated fields. As college students navigating academic and professional endeavors, we noticed that many online networking platforms felt very formal and it was difficult to make meaningful connections with other professionals. We wanted to create a platform with the flexibility of social media while retaining the human touch of interpersonal communication by creating a safe space for women and gender minorities to mentor and talk with each other online.

What it does

Upon a user’s first time signing in through their Google account, they will fill out a registration form with their preferences regarding their mentor/mentee selection. Returning users can interact with their community discussions.

How we built it

Soar was built using React, Firebase, Node, and Google Authorization.

Challenges we ran into

React was new and not really something all of us had good experience in. The roughest roadblock was routing, we struggled to navigate between pages correctly depending on being logged in, even for the first time. Finally, near the end of the night, we weren’t able to put up all the posts we had saved in the database. This was just due to lack of time.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We’re really proud of our team for starting out as a group of college students meeting for the first time and developing a product that supports others. We were able to implement many of the concepts we envisioned, featuring multiple discussion communities supported by React.js and a cloud-hosted NoSQL database.

What we learned

We learned how to work as a team using Github Desktop, by creating our own branches from main and frequently updating our local projects. We also learned how to set up Vite React, and how to utilize the React Router.

What's next for Soar

The next steps for Soar include implementing an algorithm to match mentees and mentors, a personal direct-messaging system for mentors/mentees, a profile tab where users can update their preferences as they progress in their careers, and the ability to switch mentors/mentees.