EcoSnap

EcoSnap empowers users to share and map pollution through AI-analyzed photos, turning local environmental issues into global awareness and action.

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🌱 EcoSnap — AI-Powered Sustainability Social App

EcoSnap is a cross-platform social app that gamifies environmental action through AI-powered pollution reporting, plant identification, and community-driven challenges.

It empowers users to document pollution and biodiversity in their surroundings — turning every photo into meaningful data for ecological awareness and change.

💡 Inspiration

Our inspiration came from the growing disconnect between awareness and action.

Living in urban environments like Philadelphia and cities across India, our team witnessed pollution, littering, and habitat loss every day. Yet, we noticed that people rarely act — not because they don’t care, but because they lack a platform that makes action easy, rewarding, and social.

We asked ourselves:

“What if we could transform environmental responsibility into something as engaging as social media?”

EcoSnap is our answer — blending AI, gamification, and community impact into one ecosystem that rewards users for helping the planet.

⚙️ What It Does

EcoSnap combines AI analysis, geolocation, and social engagement to promote sustainability.

🧩 Core Features

User Profiles & Leaderboards Track EcoPoints, badges, streaks, and ranks.

Pollution Reporting Upload or capture photos of environmental issues (trash, smog, runoff).

AI Vision Model identifies pollution type, severity, and location automatically.

Reports appear on a live, color-coded interactive map.

EcoDex (Plant Collection) Like a Pokédex for plants! Upload plant images to identify species, rarity, and native status.

AI Verification Agent Validates each report’s authenticity using image embeddings, GPS metadata, and contextual cues.

Personalized Challenges AI recommends eco-actions and local verification tasks based on your region and habits.

Gamification System Earn EcoPoints for actions, climb leaderboards, and unlock badges like Pollution Guardian or Rare Botanist.

Live Environmental Alerts Displays air quality, smog, and wildfire data via APIs from OpenWeather, AQICN, and NASA FIRMS.

🧠 How We Built It Layer Technology Frontend React Native (Expo) / React + Tailwind Backend Node.js / Express Database Firebase Firestore AI APIs Google Gemini 2.5 Pro, xAI (Realtime Data) Maps Google Maps API Environmental Data OpenWeatherMap, AQICN, NASA FIRMS Hosting Vercel / Firebase 🔄 Data Flow

User uploads image

AI Vision Agent classifies and fills the form

Data stored in Firestore

AI Verification Agent assigns trust scores

Verified entries populate the global map and leaderboards

🧰 Backend Endpoints POST /api/report/pollution POST /api/report/plant POST /api/verify GET /api/recommendations GET /api/leaderboard GET /api/alerts

🚧 Challenges We Faced

Training the AI Vision Agent to detect multiple environmental categories from diverse images

Implementing trust scoring for photo authenticity using metadata and embeddings

Coordinating workflows across different time zones (U.S. & India)

Designing a system that’s scalable, performant, and user-friendly

Balancing AI complexity with real-time app responsiveness

🧩 What We Learned

How to integrate vision AI with geolocation and crowdsourced data

The nuances of AI ethics and data trust in community-driven platforms

Advanced React Native UI/UX and backend scalability techniques

How gamification can drive real-world sustainability engagement

The importance of collaboration across global technical teams

🚀 What’s Next

🌍 Partnering with NGOs and city sustainability programs for cleanup events

📱 Launching a mobile app with real-time notifications and offline mode

🤖 Enhancing AI Vision with a custom-trained environmental dataset

🧾 Generating AI sustainability reports summarizing regional progress

🧩 Expanding gamification with team-based challenges and local tournaments

👥 Meet the Team

We’re all sophomores at Drexel University studying Computer Science, united by a passion for technology and environmental impact.

Neven Zurcher — Financial Expert (researched financial efforts to improve sustainability)

Srinarayan Srikanth — Full-Stack Developer (Co-op at Comcast, focusing on scalable architecture)

Soham Deshmukh — Data Analytics Expert (specializes in AI model integration and analysis)

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