Cleanr

Walkthrough: https://drive.google.com/file/d/14pUCfLJirCoKPF1ZL7CxtleSiQTFfgqH/view?usp=sharing

Problem: There are people in the Bay Area who care about environmental justice but lack access to activities that help solve issues. Furthermore, there are people in the Bay Area who care about the environment but are not aware of environmental justice and the lack of equity in terms of environmentalism. In order to solve environmental justice issues, there needs to be more awareness and support from people all over the Bay Area, not just those directly impacted by these issues.

Inspiration: We were initially looking at Sierra Club’s webpage about environmental justice in the Bay Area to gain a better understanding of the second problem track. On that webpage, we saw a link to a petition to support the 100% Clean Economy Act, but the petition only had a fraction of the target number of signatures. We realized that a huge issue was that people simply weren’t aware of environmental justice and were focused on the traditional, classist approach to environmentalism. If we could create a platform to connect people and events related to environmental justice, then we could educate people as a community and promote environmental equity. So, we created Cleanr, an app that brings people together to solve environmental justice issues.

Function: Cleanr is a mobile application that connects people across the Bay Area to environmental justice events. People and organizations can create activities by specifying the date/time, location, minimum number of participants, and a description of the event. Prospective participants can create profiles detailing their interests and specific tags that are used to match them related activities. These prospective participants then receive a feed that allows them to view created activities and choose to participate in them. If they choose to participate, they are added to a participants list. Once the number of participants reaches the threshold set by the organizer, a group chat with all the participants is created, allowing them to communicate with each other and discuss the details of the activity.

Process: Our first step in building Cleanr was to determine what features would be included. We decided on using activity “cards” that users could create, along with profiles and group chats. One challenge we ran into was deciding how participants would convey interest in activities. We deciding between a Tinder-like mechanism with swiping left/right and what Facebook uses with interested vs going. We ended up deciding on modeling our app after Tinder because it was simple and straightforward. Lastly, we designed the app on Figma. We included screens for the home page, activity feed, group chats, profile pages, and a “create an activity page”. It was challenging because neither of us knew how to use Figma, so we spent some time learning the fundamentals.

Viability: This app has the potential to be widely used in the Bay Area. San Francisco is America’s greenest city, and the Bay Area as a whole can be environmentally progressive. There’s a sizable amount of people in the Bay Area who care about environmental issues and Cleanr can help bridge the gap between them and actual events that promote environmental justice. By connecting people and events, we can help solve the environmental justice issues that are causing people to suffer.

Next Steps: The next step in our project would be to build the actual app. It would need to be developed for both iOS and Android. Developing the app would be fairly straightforward since it’s based on a tried and tested model. We would need to store data regarding the users and their profiles as well as activities. We would also use an algorithm to match users to activities based on the tags they select as well as their past preferences. Once developed, Cleanr would need to gain users. Pilot programs could be started in areas with lots of environmental justice events and then expand to accommodate the entire Bay Area.