Acropolis

A simple, intuitive economic performance grader for everyone

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The basic problem

On the looks of it, we're headed full-speed ahead for doomsday. Politics is divisive and fractured, and the news media is more bark than guiding-light. All the same, economic performance has always been something everyone has a strong interest in.

The problem is, trying to cross-check a rogue prime minister's figures on manufacturing growth in a fiscal year can be difficult and requires technical economic knowledge, something a billion Indians or a quarter-billion Americans might not universally have. Inaccessibility of data leads to disenfranchisement. What we really need is a simple economic data reporter, so we can keep tabs on our leaders. That's where Acropolis comes in.

What it does

Acropolis is web application that allows users to select a country and compiles a report for the said country's incumbent leader based on term-wide macroeconomic indicators. Some major functionality points in the prototype:

  • Collates four major economic indicators into a weighted, standardized index using an IMF algorithm that was never implemented
  • Integrate data from the Wikidata API and the World Bank Economic Indicators API, and other such data sources to present a complete ’report card’ for incumbent world leaders
  • Data scales to the incumbency date
  • Presents a simple interpretation of commonly-misunderstood indicators for public benefit

How we built it

We built the web application using node.js with an express.js backend.

Challenges we ran into

We initially built the app in SpringBoot, which is a Java based backend for JavaScript, but we realized at the very last minute that this would not work out, so we started from scratch.

Accomplishments that we think matter

We began to learn a whole new web application system overnight, after already learning a previous one from scratch the night before. All of this with the fact that none of us knew how to create web applications before this!

What we learned

Spring, SpringBoot, node.js, express.js, HTML, CSS, Using the WikiData API and the Quantl API, Implementing a REST framework, hosting a website. None of us had any experience with web app development, and all of us learned on the fly.

What's next

Like any group of excited developers, we already have a list of functionality upgrades we could give our app:

  • Integration with more diverse indices like the Human Development Index (HDI) and Gini Coefficient.
  • Bloomberg integration that evaluates government-issued securities and debt instruments
  • S&P bond ratings integration
  • A (much) better UI design.

We're confident Acropolis has the potential to reach a wide audience of students, researchers, and citizens. As such, we welcome any collaborations with platforms or developers that will help us get there.

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