Genie

Platform for businesses to connect with customers through simple texting.

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Inspiration

We came up with the idea because of all the times Yelp and Google Maps failed to provide us with the information that we needed, such as, limited hours on holidays and special/limited menu items.

What it does

Genie provides the user with a way to easily request important information which may not be found on existing services such as Google Maps or Yelp. Using a simple text message, the user gains access to guaranteed up-to-date information about daily specials, open-store hours, and other important information. The application also allows businesses to seamlessly integrate their information using our web interface and allows Google Calendar to provide its year-round schedules.

How we built it

We built the front-end web-app for business owners using Javascript, PHP, and HTML/CSS. We built the backend using Google Cloud Platform, Google App Engine, Google Calendar API, Google Cloud SQL, Twilio, and Python as our language of choice.

Challenges we ran into

Because none of us have ever worked with these technologies, some even just starting to learn how to program, getting all the technologies fully functional was a big challenge. Using each API and overcoming the obstacles proved to be difficult.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We were able to get every technology functional the way we wanted, and integrated with each other. Having Google App Engine run our server, using Twilio to communicate, and Google Cloud SQL to manage our database, we could see our slowly come together, conquering one technology at a time.

What we learned

We all learned a lot about using APIs, frontend and backend development, and integration across technologies and platforms.

What's next for Genie

The next step for Genie would be integrating with natural language processing in order to make for a more natural user experience.

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