Mentii

Mentor Streaming to Help Networking during Covid

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We wanted to solve a problem that has always existed, but got enhanced due to corona virus. When thinking about what we missed out this summer and are afraid of missing out this fall, it was networking. Networking is so important, but somehow a zoom call doesn't cut it. We also realized that this problem is even worse for students from low socio economic regions who don't have the same family connections as wealthier students. We developed Mentii to solve this issue of legacy networking.

Mentii allows students to reach out and join mentor streams even from the safety of their home. As an easy way for those who want to make an impact, Mentii allows the mentors to setup their stream in seconds and share their most valuable asset with hose who need it: knowledge. It is a relaxed environment for both parties which we hope will engage more candid conversations and build stronger relationships.

We used a Flask api as backend and served a front end React App created using npm and nvm. We used a Twitch API to integrate streaming into the platform as well as for the login feature. We used sqlalchemy to create a database and store user information. We also used a multitude of front end libraries such as material-ui and style components to make the site look nice.

We initially struggled a lot with the logistics of the programs, as we didn't have the programs necessary downloaded on our working environments. In fact, our laptop upgraded from wsl to wsl2 which caused huge problems with npm create app. Our environment gave us so many problems that it was only until 12am we successfully tied our front-end and back-end together. We also had some problems with the twitch API as only one of us had experience with it especially running on no sleep and only coffee.

We're proud of how we persevered throughout the night. We had a lot of setbacks and misfortunes. One of our members even went out and bought a new laptop because his broke. However, even though we had a 6 hour gap where our tools were all breaking and we couldn't actually code, we persisted through it. With 2 first time hackers getting a first taste of hackathons, we definitely had a great time.

Each of us added to our knowledge in different areas. We all learned more about web app development, but some of us, more experienced in back end, learned a lot about front end development, while others had their first foray into Flask and its particular set of challenges.

In the future, we want to allow users to add their linkedin and more information to make it even easier to network on our app.

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