CultureConnect

Inspiration

CultureConnect was born out of a personal need to find a sense of belonging and connect with my own community as well as others here in the U.S. As a Nepali student, I often found myself in new cities with no easy way to discover or join local cultural groups. I noticed a clear gap: there wasn’t a dedicated platform that helped students, especially international students, build cultural connections nationwide.

What it does

CultureConnect bridges that gap by helping students discover and join cultural communities across the U.S. Users can:

Find their own cultural group (e.g., Nepali student group)

Explore other cultural communities

Discover and attend public cultural events

Access college-based events (requires verified student email)

Whether you're visiting a new city or settling into a new campus, CultureConnect helps you feel at home by making cultural connection simple and accessible.

How I Built It

I developed CultureConnect using Bolt and incorporated Gemini for specific code refinements.

Challenges I Faced

One of the significant hurdles I encountered involved token usage with Bolt. As the codebase grew, simply opening Bolt would consume a substantial amount of tokens, even without active prompting. This unexpected behavior resulted in a loss of approximately 4 million tokens, which significantly impacted our development progress.

Accomplishments I'm Proud Of

Despite the challenges, we're particularly proud of the slick and well-organized navigation within the app. While there's still much more to implement, establishing a user-friendly interface was a key achievement, especially given the token usage roadblock that has currently halted our progress.

What I Learned

This project provided valuable lessons, particularly regarding prompt management. I learned that starting with a page-by-page prompting strategy would have been more effective. Providing an extensive single prompt for the entire app led to missed instructions and required significant time for corrections.

What's Next for CultureConnect

Build a backend system: This is the biggest next step as someone without a software engineering background.

Partner with universities: Collaborate with schools to verify and integrate their cultural clubs.

Seek sponsorships: Work with culturally aligned businesses (restaurants, museums, events) for in-app sponsorships.

Launch and grow: Officially launch the app and build momentum through word-of-mouth and student networks.

Built With

• bolt