Citizen-ize

Inspiration

We were inspired by our own personal experience to create this app. We were newcomers to Canada in 2014, we were only around 9-12 years old. We were completely clueless as to the new place we were about to reside in; we didn’t know the language, the culture, their norms, school life, we knew nothing. As for my parents, they knew the basics of living in Canada; how to make a simple conversation in English, what place to best stay in, and ways of transportation. We often hear about their struggles of living in a completely different country, without having someone to guide them and show them the best resources available to them. To learn more English, and learn more about Canada, our parents enrolled us in newcomers programs. There, we learnt that we were not the only ones struggling to live in a different country with no guide that shows the most reliable resources. As a result, we got the idea of this app which we believe would help every newcomer to Canada.

What it does

Citizen-ize collects and provides the best reliable resources to newcomers in Canada. On the app, there are guides to Canada, find resources, connect to other non-citizen residences from various communities, and view other's experiences in Canada while sharing yours as well.

How we built it

Our team decided to approach this idea by only prototyping our idea. Since we have limited time as well as limited skills in our team, we gave Figma a try and learn to use it on the spot as well as learn the process of user experience design and user interface design as it was both of our interests.

Challenges we ran into

Our team faced quite a few challenges as this was our first Hackathon. We weren't sure which tools are the best to use, we aren't used to having this much work due in such a short period of time so it resulted in all-nighters. We also faced so technical difficulties such as the pictures not uploading on the program we were using; Frigma.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud that we have made such progress in such a limited time with limited skills in the team. We were able to develop our project idea and manage our project to complete it on the assigned date.

What we learned

We learnt to use Figma as a tool to help us develop our product, and learn user experience and user interface design and gained skills with prototyping and wireframing, and project developments.

What's next for Citizen-ize

Create it as iOS app with more useful features as there are numerous challenges we have faced as non-citizen residents that we believe our experiences will help others.