Jornalero

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Inspiration

The word Jornalero in old Spanish stands for day laborers, and for our project we wanted to create a platform which allows these often disenfranchised members of society, have a platform in which they can integrate more efficiently into the labor market while fulfilling a need for trustworthy handyman.

We have noticed that often very talented workers in our community are relegated shadows of Home Depot parking lots, and we want them to being able to create a visible portfolio and have an opportunity to qualify for stable employment. This is also done while making a platform in which anyone would feel safe hiring them with appropriate checks on our platform. We've even integrated this concept into our logo, where the J is adorned with a straw hat and garden hoe.

What it does

Our platform connects day laborers who otherwise may just be standing in a Home Depot parking lot, to people who are looking for people to help them around the house in a safe and verified manner. On the website and app, we allow for people to find the right people for the job they need such as painting or gardening, and know upfront the quality of the work and asking rate immediately.

The platform will require every worker to verify their identity and pass a background check, and provide a photo of themselves. In addition to being able to hire someone on the website, we allow for you to hire any Jornalero person in person at our approved Jornalero meeting places (such as Home Depot or San Lorenzo lumber) using our QR code feature in which with just the scan of a code you can see their profile and know whether this is someone you want to hire, or not. Every worker has the ability to create a portfolio where they can showcase their work, and have a rating, we hope that this can allow for our Jornaleros to create a verified portfolio which could contribute to them getting more stable employment in the future.

We noticed that often these very talented workers are not able to participate as a complete equal members of society, and relegate to a very unregulated grey market. Through Jornalero, we utilize technology to address this social inequality and leverage it to work towards social good.

How we built it

The website was developed utilizing ReactJS and some API's such as Google Maps, to make the website navigable and possible to visit.

The app was conceptualized using Figma, and showcases the manner in which this platform would work if it were to be fully developed past this hackathon. We show off the perspective of the app from both the worker and requestors view, and show how the app would function. The worker side has more verification and different options relevant to someone working, while the requestor side allows for you to both explore types of jobs and qualifies workers. There is our QR code function as well, which allows for profile sharing in an instant.

Challenges we ran into

Prior to this projects, we were both completely inexperienced in utilizing ReactJS and Figma for the design process of a website and app. So from when we started Saturday morning, we had to learn everything which was a challenge, but we ultimately got a good concept for our platform down.

Getting information for the project was challenging as well, as we had to do a boots on the ground approach and view where in Santa Cruz county workers tend to group up, and create a concept for approved pick up places.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of the manner in which we went from being completely inexperienced in using any of the technologies we used, to being able to leverage them to create a website and a concept for an application.

What we learned

We learned how to leverage different technologies to make our website and the concept for our app. We learned how to utilize Figma for the design process, along with using ReactJS framework to create a website. In addition to this, we utilized API's to further improve our website and make it look better. Prior to this we only knew some CSS and HTML, but now we know some additional tools which would be useful for any site.

What's next for Jornalero

We would like to further develop the website so it is more functional, along with actually developing the app in an app developing environment like Kotlin. In addition to this, we think it would be incredibly important to add spanish support to this platform.

Long term, it could be interesting to help other groups such as maids be able to find work in a similar manner on our platform