Inspiration In a city as vibrant and vast as Delhi, you see life in all its extremes. You see incredible resilience and joy, but you also see moments of quiet struggle. We've all had that feeling: you're walking home, you see a family shivering in the cold or children who look hungry, and a powerful wave of empathy hits you. You want to help, right there, right then. But how? The moment passes, and the opportunity is lost.
That feeling—that gap between a heartfelt impulse and a tangible, meaningful action—was the sole inspiration for Karuna. "Karuna" is a Sanskrit word for compassion. We wanted to build an app that wasn't just another tool, but an engine for that compassion. We wanted to ensure that no moment of empathy ever goes to waste.
What it does Karuna is a social impact platform designed for our partner NGO in Delhi. It connects the city's compassionate citizens with those in need through a network of verified, on-the-ground volunteer facilitators.
Our app allows a citizen to:
Report a Need: Using a simple, map-based interface, a user can quickly and respectfully report the location of a person or family in need, optionally adding a short, private video to provide helpful context for the NGO.
Donate Resources: A citizen or local business with surplus food, blankets, or other resources can instantly log their donation for pickup.
The system, overseen by an Admin at the NGO, then matches these verified needs with nearby donations to create a "mission." A volunteer Facilitator accepts the mission and uses our app's guided interface to execute the delivery.
But our app's true magic lies in its feedback loop. When the citizen's contribution results in a completed mission, they receive a unique, AI-powered "Letter of Thanks." This isn't a generic notification; it's a personal, heartfelt story of their specific impact, creating a powerful emotional reward and reinforcing the value of their kindness.
How we built it We built Karuna on a modern, professional, and scalable technology stack, designed for a world-class user experience.
Frontend: The mobile app is built with React Native and Expo (SDK 51), allowing for rapid, cross-platform development. The UI is powered by React Native Paper, which gave us a fantastic set of modern, accessible components. For our core map feature, we chose the MapTiler + @rnmapbox/maps stack, which provided beautiful, high-quality, and customizable maps with a generous free tier that didn't require a credit card.
Backend: The entire backend runs on Supabase. We used its PostgreSQL database with the PostGIS extension for efficient geospatial queries. All our business logic, from handling submissions to our AI-powered features, is built as secure, serverless Edge Functions. We also utilized Supabase Storage for secure, private video uploads and Supabase Realtime to power the live mission-tracking features.
The "AI Storyteller": Our signature feature, the "Letter of Thanks," is powered by an AI text-generation API (like Picaos). Our Supabase Edge Function gathers the context of a completed mission and sends a detailed, dynamic prompt to the AI to craft a unique, compassionate story for our users.
Challenges we ran into Finding a Quality, Truly Free Map: Our biggest initial hurdle was finding a professional mapping solution that didn't require a credit card for its free tier. After hitting a wall with Google Maps, we pivoted to the MapTiler/MapLibre ecosystem, which was a game-changer. We then faced the challenge of making the default map beautiful, which we solved by learning to use MapTiler's style editor to create a custom, branded map theme for Karuna.
The "AI for Good" Dilemma: Our first idea for our AI feature was to generate art. While nice, it felt impersonal. The real challenge was figuring out how to use AI to enhance human connection, not replace it. The pivot to the "AI-Powered Letter of Thanks"—using AI to write a personal story from the NGO's perspective—was our breakthrough.
Human-in-the-Loop Complexity: We initially designed a fully automated system. We quickly realized that for trust and safety, a human (the Admin) needed to be the gatekeeper. Designing the three distinct user flows (Citizen, Admin, Facilitator) and the complex state transitions (pending, verified, assigned, completed) was a major architectural challenge that we are proud to have solved.
Accomplishments that we're proud of The "Moment of Magic": We are incredibly proud of the user experience when a mission is completed. The delivery of a unique, personal, AI-written "Letter of Thanks" is a powerful emotional reward that we believe is a genuine innovation in the social impact space.
A Truly Purpose-Driven Design: We didn't just build features; we built an experience around a core philosophy. From the "Guided Empathy" reporting flow to the "Gallery of Kindness" activity screen, every pixel is designed to make the user feel respected, valued, and connected to their impact.
Building a Resilient, Real-World System: We are proud of designing a system with an Admin-verified workflow. This isn't just a hackathon concept; it's a thoughtful, secure architecture that a real NGO could deploy with confidence, knowing they have full control and oversight.
What we learned The "Why" is More Important than the "What": We learned that the most powerful features are not always the most technically complex, but the ones that best serve the core emotional need of the user. The AI letter is a perfect example of this.
Focus is a Superpower: In a time-crunched environment, the temptation is to build everything. We learned that focusing on perfecting one core user journey and one "wow" feature results in a much stronger, more polished, and more impressive final product.
Trust is Architected, Not Assumed: We learned that for an app dealing with public goodwill, trust isn't a feature; it's the foundation. Building in features like Admin verification and clear status updates from the very beginning is non-negotiable.
What's next for Karuna Our vision for Karuna is just beginning.
Onboard Our First NGO Partner: Our immediate next step is to partner with a Delhi-based NGO to pilot Karuna, gather real-world feedback, and refine our operational model.
Launch the Full Facilitator App: We will build out the complete, hyper-efficient mobile app for the volunteer facilitators, with advanced routing and communication features.
Implement the On-Chain Impact Ledger: To provide the ultimate layer of transparency, we plan to integrate blockchain technology to create a public, immutable record of every mission completed, giving donors and partners undeniable proof of impact.
Scale to More Cities: Our long-term dream is to scale the Karuna platform to other cities across India, building a national network powered by compassion.
Built With
- api
- bolt.new
- expo.io
- full-stack
- java
- kotlin
- react-native
- typescript