BankAssist

Bank account management and monitoring for the visually impaired

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Inspiration

Our inspiration was to make banking easier for those who struggle to use mobile phones, whether it be to visual impairment, motor control, or lack of experience with technology. Simple as that.

What it does

With a Raspberry Pi running Alexa and a USB microphone, the User can easily summon the banking assistant by saying any phrase along the lines of 'start Citi'. After starting Citi, the user can ask Alexa to perform any of the following: Transfer: Transfer money between accounts with Citibank API Account history: Have Alexa list your recent transaction history for your accounts. Apply for loan/savings/checking account: Using CapitalOne API, Alexa can simplify applying for a loan, savings, or checking account.

Additionally Alexa has the ability to describe your surroundings. If you ask Alexa, "describe my surroundings", she will take a picture of your surroundings and describe the scene to you. This feature was built to assist visually impaired users.

The whole package is plug-and-play and easily portable!

How we built it

We used API from Citi Bank to write python files from the Json files in the API. The files were integrated in Alexa , which we created by integrating Amazon Web Services with a Raspberry Pi, so it has voice recognition. The ability to make transactions was developed by hand in python since there was no API for Alexa. The camera was connected to the Alexa as well, and through Azure's API, we were able to create features such as facial recognition on the Raspberry Pi

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Keval was able to successfully able to create transactions with BankAssist by creating the code completely from scratch since there was no API for transactions with Alexa. BankAssist also recognizes voice commands such as "Describe my surrounding" and "Please get my account history".

What we learned

We learned how to write programs that uses Json files as well as implement Amazon Web Services API programs. We also learned how to set up Raspberry Pis with USB camera.

What's next for BankAssist

BankAssist has the potential to create a market for blind people. There, we can make it turn from a wired Raspberry Pi to hopefully something that can be more portable and not so reliant on WiFi.

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