Hack for Humanity 2024

Hack For Humanity marked my second hackathon experience, following my inaugural participation in the Inrix Hackathon a few months ago. With some experience under my belt, I felt more prepared and confident for this challenge.

The theme of Hack For Humanity is to address and solve pressing social issues. Our focus centered on the current decline of 'third places' – spaces outside of home or work where people can connect and engage with their community. The prevalence and utilization of 'third places' have diminished, influenced by the lasting effects of COVID and a progressively digitalized world, resulting in a concerning surge in feelings of loneliness and isolation among individuals.

Our solution to this pressing social issue is Conventus (meaning 'community' in Latin). Conventus is a platform that facilitates the discovery of both these 'third places' and local community organizations and clubs. We envision Conventus as a tool that would foster connections, enabling people to become more involved in their communities.

Our homepage offers weekly recommendations for both a local community organization and a 'third place,' guiding users toward meaningful interactions and connections rather than overwhelming them with choices. The user can click on our 'Third Places' tab to enter their personal search criteria and see nearby results on a map with prevalent information about the location. To engage with their community, they can use our 'Communities' tab to browse nearby community-run groups for volunteering, sports and social clubs.

Check out our project DevPost here!

Conventus DevPost

In the development process, our team utilized JavaScript, HTML, and CSS for the front-end, while Python and Flask provided the connection to our back-end. The integration of the Google Maps APIs (including Maps, Places, Geocoding) facilitated the dynamic display of recommended locations based on the user input and search result data.

Undoubtedly, we encountered our fair share of challenges during the hackathon. A significant hurdle was the lack of front-end experience within our team. While myself and a few others were enthusiastic to learn, it was a steep learning curve given the 24hr time constraint. I'm proud of the UI/UX of our finished project and the front-end skills I learned! Last hackathon, our biggest challenge was connecting the front and back-end using proxy API calls but that prior experience made it much easier to navigate this time around.

Looking ahead, we envision Conventus to be a hub for local communities and civic engagement. Some of our ambitions includes empowering local communities to create postings within the platform, providing a space for their activities to be highlighted on the 'Communities' tab. Additionally, we aspire to refine the recommendation system to offer a ranked list based on user input in the 'third places' tab. However, we faced limitations due to the pricing structure of the Google Maps API, restricting us to return only one result.

In conclusion, Hack For Humanity was a great opportunity to learn and collaborate with others on a project with real potential for impact and continue to hone my technical and creative skills. I am excited to apply my experience to future hackathons and personal projects!