Leave Me Alone

Inspiration

We all know that reality will not be the same when the confinement has finished. We will have to avoid crowded places and be much more careful not to spread the virus. However, we will also need to keep living: having dinner with some friends, travelling to visit new places and so on.

Therefore, tourist industry will have to adapt to this new new situation. We must promote local tourism as well as fight against overcrowding and COVID-19.

What it does

To achieve these goals, the Leave Me Alone app will be of great help. Such mobile app predicts whether the town we want to visit on a given date will be crowded or not. It can also tell us if a beach, a park or a restaurant will be very busy before we go and expose to a lot of people.

Challenges I ran into

First, I had to decide between the four ideas I had for the hackathon. I chose the actual one because of it feasible implementaion and its potential impact, especially in traditional tourist destination countries such as Italy or Spain, which are also the most stricken by the pandemic. Second I had to design the interface: make it easy from the user perspective and functional. Third, I had to decide where to take the data from. I thought that the app could analyse the amount of check-ins on different travel websites, information from Google Maps and recent Google searches.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

I am proud of coming up with an idea that could help control the spread of COVID-19 while helping the tourist sector continue.

What I learned

I have to say I'm amazed with all the participants and brilliant ideas that the EU and the rest of the world are able to have when we all face a shared problem. I hope this is just the beginning.

I learnt that a good planning is critical to give shape to an idea and that if you think that idea can be helpful you don't have to be scared of showing it to the world.

What's next for Leave Me Alone

Leave Me Alone should be tested and improved afterwards. There's always something else that can be done. It could also, for example, help the user choose a not too crowded mode of transportation.