Factor

Factor lets you put your money where your mouth is. It rates companies on their ethical practices based on your own values. You can also get an ethics score based on your transaction history.

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This is Factor!

Factor lets you put your money where your mouth is. It rates companies on their ethical practices based on your own values. You can also get an ethics score based on your transaction history by linking a bank account or Venmo.

Inspiration

Have you ever felt guilty for not researching the companies that you buy from? Do you know the implications of patronizing, say, Amazon -- from an ethical standpoint?

Factor aims to solve this dilemma. In our interconnected society, we rely on an overwhelming number of brands, which in turn produces an overwhelming amount of research in order to be a conscious consumer. That's where we come in.

What it Does

Factor has a few features: 1) set up your ethical priorities upon creating an account (eg. racial diversity, environmental impact, wages, etc) 2) allows you to search a company and see its ESG score, information about its practices, its presence in the news currently, etc. 3) has a news feed of companies you follow and topics you care about, set up in your preferences when you create an account (eg. "Company gender issues in the news today...") 4) uses your transaction history to compute a score for you, based on whether you're following your own ethical values in your purchases

How we built it

Using Python we scraped Yahoo finance for ESG scores.

We then used HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to code a prototype of some of the website's pages.

Challenges we ran into

  • Difficulties with adding fields into Braintree transcations. We wanted to add a field for the business and it's ticker symbol.
  • Webscraping ESG data from Yahoo Finance without getting banned.
  • Integrating the data with our front-end platform.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Putting this project of value! We've made something of value that hasn't been done before.
  • We got a small crash course into the software development cycle.
  • We had FUN!

What's next for Factor

  • Break down of ESG scores into smaller categories
  • Integration of the Braintree, Venmo, and PayPal APIs into the website.
  • Passive investing (eg. integration with app "Acorn", allows you to invest spare change into good causes)
  • Email alerts for current activity of companies you often patronize/you follow on Factor
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