Inspiration
We've all been there: the awkward silence after a group dinner when it's time to split the bill, the endless "who paid for what?" messages after a vacation, and the mental gymnastics of tracking shared expenses. Existing bill-splitting apps are functional, but they're just glorified calculators. They still feel like a chore and do little to solve the social awkwardness of asking friends for money.
Our inspiration was to transform this entire experience. We asked ourselves: What if managing shared finances wasn't a task, but a fun, seamless, and collaborative interaction? What if an app could not only track expenses but also handle the awkward conversations for you? That's why we built Divido—to make sharing money with friends as easy and enjoyable as making memories with them.
What it does
Divido is a smart, social finance companion that completely redefines how friends and groups manage shared expenses.
Witty AI Assistant ("Divi"): At the heart of Divido is Divi, our AI money buddy. Instead of just tapping buttons, you can speak to it naturally. Say, "Hey Divi, remind Aman about the pizza money," and our assistant, powered by Gemini and Eleven Labs, will craft and send a witty, voice-powered reminder. It's like having a funny, financially savvy friend handle the awkward stuff for you.
Intelligent Group Budgets: Planning a trip? Just tell Divi your plan, like "a 5-day trip to Goa for 4 people," and our AI will instantly generate saver, comfort, and luxury budget suggestions. Once set, the app automatically tracks spending and sends friendly alerts to the whole group, preventing overspending before it happens.
Gamified "Loser Pays All" Mode: Why split a small bill when you can play for it? For expenses like coffee or snacks, the group can launch a "Quick Draw" challenge—a real-time reaction game where the last person to tap the screen pays the bill. It turns a mundane transaction into a moment of high-stakes, hilarious fun.
Effortless Expense Splitting: Of course, Divido handles all the core functionality you'd expect—easily add expenses, attach receipts, and split by amount, percentage, or shares, all with a clean and intuitive interface.
How we built it
Divido is a full-stack application built with a modern, AI-first technology stack:
Frontend: The mobile app is built with React Native and Expo, allowing for a cross-platform experience on both iOS and Android.
Backend: Our server is powered by Node.js with Express and written in TypeScript, providing a robust and scalable foundation.
AI Brain: The intelligence behind our assistant and budget features comes from Google's Gemini AI. We use carefully engineered prompts to generate witty responses, analyze user intent, and create budget estimations.
AI Voice: The unique, natural-sounding personality of our assistant is brought to life using the Eleven Labs API for high-quality text-to-speech conversion.
Challenges we ran into
Building an app with such a strong focus on user experience and AI presented unique challenges.
Making the AI Feel Human: Our biggest challenge was ensuring Divi didn't sound like a generic, robotic chatbot. This required significant work in prompt engineering for the Gemini API to get the tone just right—a perfect blend of helpful, witty, and friendly, without being annoying.
Fair & Fun Gamification: Designing the "Loser Pays All" game was tricky. It had to be simple enough to play in seconds, completely fair with no room for cheating, and genuinely fun. We settled on the "Quick Draw" reaction test after realizing it was the purest measure of focus and created the most suspense.
Seamless Service Integration: Orchestrating the flow between the user's voice input, our backend, the Gemini API for text generation, and the Eleven Labs API for voice synthesis—all while providing a fast response—was a complex architectural challenge that required careful optimization.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
The "Wow" Moment: We are incredibly proud of the user experience when they first hear Divi's witty, voice-powered reminders. It's the moment they realize this isn't just another expense app.
A Truly Fun Feature: The "Loser Pays All" game is a feature we believe genuinely enhances social interactions, turning a potentially negative event (paying) into a positive, shared experience.
Integrating Cutting-Edge AI: We successfully integrated two powerful AI services to create a cohesive and intelligent user experience that goes far beyond simple data entry and calculation.
What we learned
This hackathon was a massive learning experience. We learned the immense potential of Large Language Models (LLMs) like Gemini to create novel and engaging product features that solve real-world social problems. We dove deep into prompt engineering, realizing that the quality of the AI's output is directly tied to the creativity and precision of the prompts we design. Finally, building and connecting the full stack, from the mobile interface to multiple cloud services, solidified our understanding of modern application architecture.
What's next for Divido
Divido is more than just a hackathon project; we see it as the future of social finance. Our roadmap is packed with exciting enhancements that are already in development:
Automated Expense Detection: Our next major feature is to allow users to opt-in to a service that automatically detects transactions from their SMS messages and prompts them to split the expense, making the app truly zero-effort.
Deeper Payment Integration: We plan to move beyond simple UPI deep links to integrate directly with payment gateways, allowing for in-app settlements and even scheduled payments.
Expanded Game Library: "Quick Draw" is just the beginning. We plan to add more quick, fun mini-games to decide who pays, turning Divido into a go-to app for group outings.
With its unique blend of AI, gamification, and user-centric design, we believe Divido has the potential to become an essential tool for friends everywhere, creating a strong business model built on premium, AI-powered features.
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