Houston Emergency Preparedness Wizard

It’s the simplest way for every Houstonian to get storm-ready. In your language, in your community’s voice, it walks with you step by step so getting storm-ready feels simple, doable, and yours.

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Team

Krista Acas, Michael Griebe, Guillermo Sáenz, Jeremy Gaston, Godfrey Obeng, Nihan Durmaz, Andreina Gines Project Presenter: Mark Cueva

Inspiration

Houston, like many fast-growing coastal cities, faces a mounting resilience crisis. Despite advanced warning systems and heroic community-led efforts, most residents remain underprepared for natural disasters.

What it does

Getting storm-ready in Houston should be simple. Our solution is a text-message guide that talks to you in your language and your community’s voice. You text a number, and it gives you the next two steps for your street, right now. No app. No login. It works even when service is spotty. Behind the scenes, a smart guide learns from every conversation, so the advice keeps getting better for you and your neighbors. As more people use it, whole blocks get clearer, faster, safer—a network that makes everyone stronger.

How we built it

We chose SMS because it’s universal, low-bandwidth, resilient when power/internet wobble, and works for every phone—making hyperlocal, bilingual guidance accessible without apps or logins. We pair it with an AI agent to generate on-demand, resident-initiated next-best actions—personalized by block-level risk, language, and household needs—and to keep learning from conversations to improve relevance over time. Together, they deliver pull-based guidance (not broadcasts), at city scale, with measurable behavior change and minimal data collection.

Challenges we ran into

Development - Couldn't use SMS text messaging service in time for the hackathon, so created a website to mockup a phone demo that simulates the intended function. Design - Ran into issues trying to work an existing design system and customize it to fit the project's needs. Had to spend a lot of time researching and reading documentation

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Almost all of the team is comprised of long time Houstonians who have faced many disaster and emergency situations in the city over the years. We're glad to create something that can be utilized by other Houstonians and make the city and its' people more resilient for the future to come.

What we learned

Dev - Learned how to used voiceflow and utilized its' knowledgebase to create a web application. Design - Learned how to utilize Material Design 3 to create both Desktop and Mobile Experiences

What's next for Houston Emergency Preparedness Wizard

We can launch and validate the Wizard in 90 days across 2–3 Houston communities with $250,000 (Phase 1), plus specific mentors and OEM access.

Product Development ($150,000): Launch the SMS MVP, build the rules engine for hyperlocal next-best actions, ship EN/ES script library, dashboards, uptime monitoring, and privacy/compliance artifacts. Community Co-Creation & Localization ($30,000): Partner with 3–5 CBOs, run resident panels, deliver EN/ES localization and low-literacy testing, and embed cultural trust cues. Marketing & Partnerships ($70,000): Cover carrier/SMS fees; deploy QR signage/endcaps with H-E-B; activate schools/clinics/faith orgs; run micro-campaigns to drive opt-ins and track attribution.

In addition to capital, we seek mentors and strategic partners to accelerate scale:

GovTech/Procurement (city onboarding, data-sharing MOUs). Behavioral Comms (EN/ES) (nudge framing, message fit, low-literacy testing). Retail Operations (in-store QR flows, endcap execution, attribution). Public-Health Evaluation (pre/post design, pilot outcomes for Phase-2 expansion).

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