BridgePath

💡 Inspiration

BridgePath was inspired by the idea that learning should be accessible, empowering, and community-driven. We noticed that many people, especially students have valuable knowledge but lack opportunities to teach in meaningful ways. At the same time, learners often feel more comfortable learning from peers who are just slightly ahead of them. This motivated us to create a platform that bridges gaps between learners and mentors while making education more inclusive and less intimidating.

What it does

BridgePath is a mentorship-based learning app where users search for a skill (like UI Design or Python) and instantly get matched with mentors who are just one level ahead. After onboarding, the app uses your profile info (such as age group/learning stage) to recommend mentors whose expertise and level best fit your needs. Each mentor profile shows their name, age group, and specific expertise, and learners can request a session directly from the results.

Mentors don’t just “help”, they’re rewarded through community recognition, progress points, or volunteer hours, turning mentorship into something measurable and motivating. The goal is to create a safe, structured pathway where learning is accessible to everyone and teaching becomes a way to give back and grow.

How we built it

We built BridgePath using React with functional components and hooks such as useState and useEffect to manage onboarding, search input, loading states, and dynamic mentor results. The frontend fetches the logged-in user’s profile on load, stores their role in state, and passes that information into a matching function that queries Supabase for relevant mentors. Supabase handles authentication, database storage, and secure access through Row Level Security, ensuring users only see data they’re permitted to access. We used state-based navigation to switch between onboarding and dashboard views, keeping the code simple and readable while still supporting secure, scalable data flow.

Challenges we ran into

One of the main challenges we faced was configuring Row Level Security correctly, as data existed in the database but initially returned no results due to restrictive policies. Debugging authentication states and understanding how frontend requests interact with backend permissions required careful testing. We also had to balance usability and safety when designing a platform intended for multiple age groups, which required thoughtful UX decisions and iterative improvements.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of building a fully functional mentorship-matching platform that reflects our core values of empowerment and accessibility. Successfully implementing secure authentication and role-based data access was a major technical achievement. Additionally, designing a system that allows users to both learn and teach while recognizing mentors for their contributions represents a meaningful step toward community-driven education.

What we learned

Through this project, we learned how to design and build a full-stack application that prioritizes both technical robustness and user experience. We gained hands-on experience with React, Supabase, and secure database practices. More importantly, we learned how impactful inclusive design can be when creating platforms meant to support diverse users and learning styles.

What's next for BridgePath

What’s next for BridgePath is expanding beyond matching into a complete mentorship experience. We plan to add better communication tools such as in-app messaging and notifications, along with stronger privacy controls to give users more ownership over their data and interactions. We also aim to introduce session scheduling, allowing learners and mentors to coordinate availability, book sessions, and track progress, making BridgePath a more seamless, safe, and structured learning platform.

Built With

• css
• javascript
• postgresql
• react
• react-router
• supabase
• supabase-auth