Find your flame.

Inspiration

In India, more than 70% of students make career or course choices due to family or societal pressure, not personal passion. This misalignment often leads to burnout, regret, and wasted potential. We were inspired to build Find Your Flame — an AI mentor that helps students discover what truly excites them, not what others expect of them.

What it does

Guides students through AI-driven micro-challenges (songs, doodles, puzzles, etc.) to spark curiosity.

Builds a Passion Tree — roots (values), branches (domains), and leaves (skills).

Creates a Flame Report summarizing top 3 passions, strengths, and a 7-day kickstart roadmap.

Rewards exploration with an Interest Passport (badges and levels).

Connects students to relevant clubs, mentors, and communities for real-world application.

How we built it

Frontend: Chatbot interface for onboarding and challenges.

Backend/AI: IBM Granite + ADK integration for analyzing user inputs and mapping them into “passion clusters.”

Visualization: Interactive Passion Tree to show growth paths.

Flame Report Generator: Automated personalized PDF with insights + roadmap.

Motivation System: AI nudges, reminders, and weekly progress tracking.

Challenges we ran into

Ensuring the project wasn’t “just ChatGPT with a wrapper” but offered real, action-driven discovery.

Time constraints for building the Passion Tree visualization and report generator in hackathon scope.

Balancing privacy concerns since career guidance is sensitive.

Narrowing focus from “everyone” to a sharper segment: students aged 16–22.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Designed a unique, India-first approach to career discovery that goes beyond tests and into real action.

Built a functional MVP that demonstrates onboarding → challenge → Flame Report flow.

Created memorable metaphors (Flame, Passion Tree, Passport) that make the experience engaging and sticky.

Learned to combine generative AI + gamification in a way that feels fun yet impactful.

What we learned

Generative AI can be used not just for answers, but for personalized mini-experiences.

A narrower audience focus makes the solution more impactful and feasible.

Storytelling (Flame, Tree, Passport) is as powerful as the tech when pitching to judges.

How to translate a big social challenge into a hackathon-ready MVP.

What's next for Find your flame.

Expand the Passion Tree into a full learning & growth tracker.

Integrate with edtech platforms and internships for direct real-world action.

Build AI mentor matching to connect users with role models.

Scale beyond students → to young professionals facing burnout and career pivots.

Ultimately, make passion discovery as common as aptitude tests in India, but more fun, personal, and action-first.

Built With

• aws-(for-deployment)-databases:-mongodb-(user-data
• canva
• design
• firebase-(auth-&-badges)-apis-&-ai-models:-ibm-granite-+-adk-(personality-&-skills-analysis)-openai-/-genai-models-(for-creative-micro-challenges
• flame
• flask-(backend-api)-cloud-&-hosting:-ibm-cloud
• github-(collaboration)
• javascript-frameworks:-react-(frontend)
• languages:-python
• nudges)-visualization:-d3.js-(for-interactive-passion-tree)-other-tools:-figma-(ui/ux-design)
• progress-tracking)
• report