Team <24> - iLokal

Support local with iLokal!

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Inspiration

What if you know every small business running around your neighbourhood? Imagine a system that centralizes the companies available based on your current location. Using iLokal, you can find pisang goreng and other goods without the need to travel to different places and expose yourself to the danger of COVID-19 that seems uncontrollable with the emergence of new variants nowadays.

What it does

  1. Allow sellers to display items/goods they sell virtually based on their location.
  2. Allow buyers to browse items/goods that are sold around their neighbourhood.

What makes iLokal different?

  1. iLokal was built specifically to act like a centralized place for sellers and buyers from the same neighbourhood to buy and sell things. Thus, the web app is not flooded with unrelated chats, videos and news.
  2. iLokal focuses on the users’ neighbourhood human resources only. So, the COVID-19 virus that spread due to runners that do the delivery from many places can be reduced.
  3. Current sellers usually use social media such as Facebook and WhatsApp groups to promote their businesses. However, it will be usually crowded with spam and make it hard to find what the user really wants.

How we built it

  1. Brainstorming
  2. Using SWOT analysis to analyse which idea is the best
  3. Doing the problem statement canvas
  4. Drafting the web application layout to ease the web designing process
  5. Coding (HTML, CSS)

Challenges we ran into

  1. The biggest challenge we encountered was not knowing much about Hackathon. We did some research by listening to Hackathon participants' experiences on YouTube as well as asking seniors and lecturers for tips to prepare ourselves. Fortunately, we all come from the same background, that is, Computer Science.
  2. Less interaction between the sellers and the buyers from lack store of data. Therefore, we have trouble tracking sellers' data. Using the database system would be easier for buyers to search for specific sellers.
  3. Developing code to display users current location on our website was tough and forced us out of our comfort zone since we had no experience in doing it.
  4. iLokal had to compete with existing apps like Grab and Foodpanda. One of our ideas was not to focus solely on F&B but various services in a local neighbourhood.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We didn't know each other the first time we met, but we managed to work together. We are incredibly proud that we could learn new concepts and implement them into our project. We are excited to continue developing iLokal and further exploring full-stack web development concepts to which we had not previously been exposed in the classroom.

What we learned

  1. We learned to scrap a plan that was not working out; an essential lesson alongside this was recollecting thoughts and ideas to ensure we are still having fun and challenging ourselves.
  2. Some of us improved our understanding of how to use Git for large team projects.
  3. We were trained to solve problems in a short time.
  4. We learned to be realistic in doing a project to maximise our understanding of the current situation.

What's next for iLokal

With sufficient financial support and time, we believe that this idea could genuinely help the locals and Malaysia economy on a bigger scale hereafter. In the future development, we hope iLokal will be able to:

  1. Enter big app store platforms like Apple App Store and Android Play Store,
  2. Implement payment gateway in iLokal.
  3. Add feature to identify user real-time location so the user can track the local businesses available within the user's area
  4. Upgrade the sellers' reliability by improving rating & feedback on a particular post.
  5. Add a new Runner/Rider service for package delivery within the user's area.

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