Inspiration
When we were brainstorming, we talked about how we wanted to partner with Waltham Youth Partnership because of the plethora of opportunities and internships they provide to fight against inequalities and inequities. As a team of diverse students who know the struggles of finding internships and opportunities, we personally related to WYP’s mission and wanted to help improve their presence and communication. We created the online, media engagement platform, Circles, to allow students to get connected without feeling like they are being held back by social barriers as well as enable access to opportunities for Waltham's youth.
What it does
Circles targets the exposure of WYP online presence, external communication, and connecting youth to resources. Users are able to make a profile, share their personal circles of interest, and connect to staff, program leaders, and other students through an online forum. This will serve as a way for students to build their network and learn more about volunteer opportunities and educational internships.
How we built it
We communicated to the Board Fellow of WYP, Markia Neufville, to ask her about impeding improvements and issues they want to address with their WYP website. We have built the website for Circles using Html, CSS, SCSS, Dango, and Javascript to strengthen communication between the youth and staff in an interactive manner as well as urge students to expand their circle of influence.
Challenges we ran into
Our biggest challenge was narrowing down a broad list of ideas we wanted to do. Partnering with WYP inspired us to think about the biggest problems that students often face and, therefore, we had many goals on our list that we wanted to achieve. Through the brainstorming process, we learned more about practicality, compromises, and time management. Another big challenge, we faced was developing the forum and messaging platform. However, with time, patience, and drive, this was accomplished.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We are proud of our team for being motivated to help social good and overturning the little stumbling blocks we faced throughout this hackathon. This was our first hackathon, so there were new challenges we have faced from learning how to participate in one in general and how it works. Building a website in two days is an accomplishment itself! So we are proud to come together for a cause, brainstorm new ideas, and build a method and a website to improve the presence of our nonprofit.
What we learned
We learned that working as a team towards a common goal makes anything possible - even within 2 days! We learned about the importance of time management, planning, and task delegation.
What's next for Media Engagement Hack for Waltham Partnership for Youth
In the future, we hope to collaborate with the original WYP website domain, and develop an algorithm that matches user's selected circle interests to resources and communities with shared interests. Additionally, we hope to create more sub-circles to open up more prospects such as research volunteership and shadowing opportunities for our youth.
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