Alicia & Zakaria

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  Daily meal menu screen with clear cards and large text, built for accessibility and easy reading by seniors.

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  Live voice session screen powered by Gemini native audio for natural, hands-free conversations with seniors.

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  Bilingual landing page introducing Alicia-Zakaria, an AI companion designed for older adults.

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  Family portal where loved ones can connect, manage contacts, and stay close through simple video calling.

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  Main app home screen with quick access to Alicia or Zakaria, family, activities, and personalized daily companionship.

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  Activities hub with local news, cognitive games, and nostalgic music to support engagement and reminiscence.

Inspiration

In the final years of my mother’s life, she lived alone. Even though I visited her twice a month, she still felt deeply lonely.

This personal experience opened my eyes to how many seniors quietly endure the same isolation — despite having families who care. It became the driving force behind AlicIA & ZakarIA.

What it does

AlicIA & ZakarIA are warm, always-available AI companions that accompany seniors every day.

Through natural, empathetic conversations, they reduce feelings of loneliness and support mental health by providing consistent emotional connection, daily engagement, and a gentle, caring presence 24/7.

How we built it

We built it using Google’s Gemini model, developed rapidly through vibe-coding sessions.

Gemini’s native live audio capabilities deliver incredibly realistic, fluid voice-to-voice interactions that feel truly natural and human-like.

Challenges we ran into

The biggest challenge was giving the AI persistent memory so it could remember past conversations and build genuine, ongoing relationships.

We solved this by using Firestore to store and retrieve intelligent summaries of every interaction.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We’re proud that AlicIA & ZakarIA already work remarkably well — the conversations feel warm, natural, and genuinely caring.

We believe this technology has the power to bring real comfort and joy to thousands of seniors who need companionship.

What we learned

Working with Gemini made the entire project far easier and more powerful than we imagined.

It is an outstanding model for natural voice-to-voice interactions, and its function calling (combined with real-time Google Search grounding) was a game-changing advantage.

What's next for Alicia & Zakaria

We will soon complete the experience by adding Gemini-powered brain games, smart reminders, and one-tap family video calls.

Our goal is to implement AlicIA & ZakarIA in as many retirement homes and senior residences as possible, starting in 2026.

Built With

• autoprefixer
• crypto
• css
• dotenv
• firebase
• firebase-analytics
• firebase-cli
• firebase-functions
• firestore
• google-fonts
• google-generative-ai
• html
• jitsi-meet
• lucide-react
• node.js
• postcss
• react
• tailwind-css
• typescript
• vite
• vitest