Echoes of Her

A safe platform where women in tech share real stories without fear. Our AI protects their identity before publishing and sends them a personalized message of support. 💜

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Inspiration

Women in tech face discrimination, impostor syndrome, and hostile work environments every day. But there's no safe space to share these experiences without fear of exposure or retaliation. Their stories exist — they just need a place to be heard. On International Women's Day 2026, we decided to build that place.

What it does

Echoes of Her is a web platform where women can:

  • Share real stories about their experiences in tech
  • Explore stories from other women filtered by category
  • Support each other through likes
  • Get AI protection before publishing — our AI detects real names, companies, and offensive language to protect the author's identity
  • Receive a personalized AI-generated support message after publishing

How we built it

Frontend: React + Vite + Tailwind CSS v4 + Lucide React

Backend: Node.js + Express + MongoDB Atlas

AI: Groq API — two endpoints:

  • /stories/check — content moderation before publishing
  • /stories/:id/ai-support — empathetic support message generation

Deploy: Vercel (frontend) + Render (backend)

Challenges we ran into

  • Implementing the AI moderation flow so it intercepts before saving to the database
  • Fixing a double-publish bug where stories were being saved twice due to duplicate POST calls
  • Configuring MongoDB Atlas network access for Render's dynamic IPs
  • Deploying a full-stack monorepo for the first time — ever

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Shipped a full-stack web app in 48 hours — our first ever deployment to production
  • Successfully integrated AI moderation that actually protects women before they publish
  • Built a product that feels emotionally safe, not just technically functional
  • Designed a cohesive visual identity from scratch — logo, UI, animations and all
  • Debugged and fixed a double-publish bug mid-hackathon without breaking everything else

What we learned

  • How to integrate Groq API with the OpenAI SDK
  • Full-stack deployment with Vercel + Render + MongoDB Atlas
  • How to design with empathy — every design decision was made thinking about the women who would use this platform

What's next for Echoes of Her

  • Anonymous user profiles — register to track your stories, like Reddit style
  • Admin dashboard to review flagged stories and manage community safety
  • Expand to the full Latin American tech community
  • Mentorship connections between women based on shared experiences
  • Insights dashboard showing trends in women's experiences across the industry
  • B2B version for companies that want to measure and improve their internal culture for women

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