Helping Hand

Inspiration

We were inspired by a story where a grandfather got scammed out of his life savings and retirement money because he told his son got into a car accident and immediately needed surgeries. This occurred on the one day that his caretaker, his wife, was visiting family. In his panic, he neglected to call his wife or his son which led him to financial ruin and a deeply ingrained distrust of health professionals. No one should have to go through this emotional damage, particularly as one of the largest generations in the US-the baby boomers-are rapidly approaching retirement. We made this demo/app in order to be a safety net for our beloved parents and grandparents in the future.

What it does

Helping Hand allows the guardian to provide a second level of authorization for any funds withdrawn by the dependent over a certain limit. The guardian must log in to the app using the proper account information. Upon logging in, the guardian will be able to see the current account balance and approve or decline any pending notifications for withdrawals. Ideally, there would be 2 guardians and both must approve the withdrawal within a certain time limit for the request to go through. These two guardians and the elder would jointly be able to change the registered guardian(s), methods of contact, and withdrawal limit as necessary after registering for the service/signing a contract.This would minimize human error and provide a countermeasure to the possibility of an elder being scammed without anyone in near proximity to advise him/her.

How we built it

We used Android Studio to design the UI and overall framework for our app. Our bank account information and withdrawal information comes from Capital One's API, Nessie. We used HTTP requests to get the information and update the withdrawal status.

Challenges we ran into

We both had minimal experience with app creation. Java by default does not allow HTTP requests to be made (must be HTTPS), so we had to find a workaround for that. Nessie would not allow us to change the withdrawal status despite posting a "completed" status. The HTTP response needed to be parsed to extract relevant information to be displayed on the app.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We managed to create a working demo that actually uses an HTTP request to retrieve account information from Nessie. We also successfully parse the data and show it on screen. The app itself has a login screen, home screen, options screen, and notifications screen.

What we learned

We learned a lot about Android studio and using Java for HTTP requests. We also learned how Nessie works.

What's next for Helping Hand

We only made a demo for the guardian's point of view of the app, so we would also like to make a demo for the dependant's point of view. Moreover, we would like to make the withdrawal authorization process fully functional.

Built With

• android-studio
• nessie