Kalcer

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Inspiration

Indonesia is a country with vast cultural diversity, home to hundreds of ethnic groups, languages, and traditions. Yet, this richness is often underappreciated or misunderstood, even among Indonesians themselves. Many travelers, migrants, or even locals face confusion when visiting new areas, unsure of local etiquette, customs, or taboos. We wanted to create something that makes cultural knowledge more accessible, more interactive, and community-driven. That vision led to Kalcer, a culture-focused forum where people can share, ask, and learn about Indonesian culture from real stories and AI-powered insights.

What it does

Kalcer is a mobile forum app designed for users to explore and exchange cultural experiences. Users can write posts about cultural traditions, share do’s and don’ts in certain regions, ask questions when they're uncertain about local norms, or review their experiences after visiting a specific area. The goal is to make cultural exchange more casual, social, and helpful, like asking a local friend. Kalcer also features an integrated AI assistant that users can interact with. By inputting any location in Indonesia, such as a city, province, or ethnic group, the AI will return a short cultural summary. This includes local customs, etiquette, traditional food, unique facts, and values that define the area. The AI is specifically designed to only accept and respond to inputs related to Indonesian locations, ensuring the content stays focused and relevant. This helps users quickly understand a region before visiting or interacting with people from that culture.

How we built it

We started by brainstorming and exploring each track offered in the hackathon, such as sustainability, education, and cultural connection. After several discussions and changes, we agreed to focus on a culture-themed app. Once the idea was set, Syarna worked on designing the app by gathering inspiration from Dribbble and other platforms. At the same time, Hilmy prepared the development setup, explored tech options, and read documentation for AI integration. After the design was ready, Hilmy built the app using Flutter, aiming to closely follow the UI and integrate Gemini AI for the cultural summary feature. While development was ongoing, Syarna focused on creating the pitch video and visual assets. We continued improving and polishing the app until it was ready for submission.

Challenges we ran into

At the beginning, we didn’t have a clear idea and spent time exploring different tracks like sustainability, education, and cultural connection. It took several discussions to finally decide on a culture-themed app that felt both meaningful and doable. Having only one developer was also a challenge. Building a full-stack app alone in a short timeframe wasn’t realistic, so we focused on creating a solid frontend using Flutter with dummy data to represent the experience.Integrating Gemini AI was another obstacle, as it was our first time working with generative AI in a mobile app. We had to test various prompt formats to make the responses useful and culturally accurate.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

One of our biggest achievements was successfully integrating Gemini AI into the application. This allowed us to go beyond static content and offer a more dynamic experience for users who want to learn about different cultures in Indonesia. The AI integration not only worked but felt natural within the app flow. We are also proud that we managed to complete a functional prototype with only two team members, under limited time and technical constraints. This was our first time joining a hackathon, and being able to stick with the process from start to finish felt incredibly rewarding. Despite our packed schedules and limited resources, we kept going and brought our vision to life.

What we learned

Through this project, we learned how to manage our time more efficiently, especially when balancing other responsibilities during a fast-paced hackathon. We also learned the importance of aligning ideas early on and sticking to a clear scope. From a technical standpoint, we gained hands-on experience with Flutter and learned how to integrate AI APIs (specifically Google's Gemini) into a real-world application.

What's next for Kalcer

Moving forward, we plan to build a full backend to support real user data, authentication, and forum functionality. We want to expand the AI capabilities to support more natural conversations and personalized recommendations. We also aim to implement a smarter forum feed powered by social media-like algorithms so that users can explore content that is most relevant to them. Ultimately, our goal is to turn Kalcer into a fully functional platform that promotes cultural understanding across the nation.