Inspiration
We wanted to come to this hackathon to make a project we knew would help people. Through our own frustrations trying to build credit and the overall lack of resources for financial literacy, we saw FinSight as a perfect solution to a long standing problem. Through FinSight, we hope to be able to empower those who are continually held back by a lack of credit, historically minority communities, and put them on a track to financial independence.
What it does
FinSight helps provide AI insight into opportunities someone can use to improve their credit. A user first makes their account and then inputs a number of factors that impact their credit. Then, using Google Gemini, we provide a percentage ranking of which factors are currently hurting their credit and where they are succeeding. As the user continues making improvements and their credit changes, they can log back in and update their information, seeing what their next steps could be.
How we built it
We built FinSight using a MERN stack, Google Cloud, and Google Gemini. We have all touched different aspects of the MERN stack individually and felt that, together, it was our best option for creating a minimum viable product. Initially, we created separate aspects of the project on our own, and when we all had enough to put together we worked on combining them. Neema worked primarily on the front end with React, James built up the backend in Node Express, and Miraziz worked on implementing an authorization protocol with Auth0. Once combined, we were able to continue working and further collaborate, with each of us giving each other ideas or solutions to problems we ran in to. Once our log in protocol was established and our front end was able to access the database, we could implement the Gemini API to analyze user input and display the AI's suggestions.
Challenges we ran into
All of us were using technologies that were new to us and faced significant challenges trying to fit everything together. Firstly, we only had a base level knowledge of our tech stack from Youtube tutorials and smaller projects; this was the most comprehensive web app that any of us had built. Second, while we had some experience with the individual aspects of our tech stack, we had never combined all of them together. It took a significant amount of googling, watching Youtube tutorials, and searching the web from all three of us to combine our starting points into one cohesive product. Finally, we challenged ourselves to incorporate new technologies we hadn't used before into our final hackathon submission. James had to learn how to navigate Google Cloud to host our mongo data base, Neema tackled using the Google Gemini API with the front end to create a well designed dashboard, and Miraziz figured out how to use Auth0 to give users another form of authentication.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
The main accomplishment that we are proud of is learning new technologies we were unfamiliar with to challenge ourselves and make as helpful a product as possible. Even though we had our own responsibilities, the three of us were able to pass around each other's laptops and give pointers whenever one of us hit a road block. By risking not reaching the deadline and sacrificing the time to learn these new technologies, we were able to create a final product we are proud to present as the best project any of us have made. This is the first hackathon for all three of us and we feel that it showed us that we have the power to make a difference and address issues that have real world impacts.
What we learned
All of use were able to learn specific technologies much more in depth than we had before. Neema was able to become much more proficient in React and get a deeper understanding in JavaScript; James learned the intricacies of hosting a server and gained a greater knowledge of hosting a back end with Node and Express; and Miraziz learned how to implement Auth0 with a MERN web app. In addition, we learned the intricacies of collaborating in a fast paced environment with a small team. Compared to school projects with a deadline of a few weeks or personal projects with an indefinite finish date, building a web app for a hackathon was infinitely more intense and required a higher degree of communication to be able to effectively deliver a product. Plus, we were able to gain a better appreciation of git and we utilized its different components way more than we have in the past.
What's next for FinSight
We set up FinSight to be able to continue growing and adding more features. While we were only able to get an AI analysis with gauges to visualize factors that impact credit in the hackathon timeline, we believe that FinSight has the capacity for so much more. Some features that we discussed at the start of the project and hope to implement soon are recommendations for addressing issues hurting a user's credit, local banks and credit unions that provide support and offer accounts for individuals trying to build their credit, credit cards that fit the user's current credit that could be used to further build credit, and visualizations of credit improvements over time as users continue updating their profile. We built our tech stack with all of this in mind and implemented a fully fleshed out user system that provides authentication and tracks changes the user makes over time. We believe that using AI and visualizations to show improvement can help motivate users to want to continue working on building and reaping the benefits of financial freedom.
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