01_Lebensmittel-Matching_Herausforderung_Nexd

We enable purchases by individuals for others to counter the spread of Covid-19 with a novel decentralized call center.

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Inspiration

The coronavirus required short-term solutions for the purchase of goods such as food or medicines. Above all, it is a matter of maintaining social distance to protect against new infections. Especially in supermarkets, it is very difficult to keep the distance from people because everybody eventually needs food. So how can we supply everyone with food and still reach a much smaller number of people in the supermarkets? That's when the idea came up: if I'm going shopping for myself anyway, why not go shopping for my neighbours as well? Here the story of Nexd begins.

What it does

The app is designed to help everyone, whether they have a smartphone or not. People with smartphones can select their desired items in the app, specify the quantity and upload it as a shopping list. Helpers nearby see these shopping lists and process them when they are out getting their groceries. Now to the unique selling point: People without a smartphone can call a unique number nationwide. Here they can speak their wishes on tape. The recording is loaded into the app, where helpers nationwide can listen to it and convert it into a written list. These digitalised shopping lists are then available for processing by helpers nearby to the people making the lists. The helpers can choose as many shopping lists as they want and buy the items for them. Afterwards, they are brought to the people in quarantine. The payment process is currently managed by the helpers and seekers, but the implementation of payment processes like PayPal and such are planned.

Additional Benefits

  • It's built with scalability in mind (AWS, twilio)
  • Reduces CO2-Emissions through travel savings
  • Improves the community spirit
  • Helps local shops sell their products, void of cooperations as the middle man

How we built it

Day 0 Since we all did not know each other, the first thing to do was to get to know each other, respectively the competences of each individual. Then the classification - who takes care of what? Backend, Frontend and Design/Orga were divided up so that the groups could continue working among themselves afterwards. But before that, we set our goals and above all: What should our app do that makes it special? Until late into the night we worked on the first steps for the backend and frontend.

Day 1 The design was created. Backend and frontend, as well as DevOps, were further developed. A simple solution for the call service was reached.

Day 2 The last day was and is for us: continue programming and developing the best! Meanwhile, the video has been produced. We are satisfied with our progress and especially our contribution to the Hackathon! Some impressions from an early Sunday build: https://youtu.be/xuzO8Y0dqZs

The biggest challenge

"How do we reach people without smartphones (e.g. our older generations)?"

This was tough, but Friday night we realised that by opening a service that receives calls from the target groups this could be easily managed. With this idea, everyone can benefit from our concept, regardless of their technological background. At the same time, we reach the older generations who are usually difficult to access digitally.

One issue remained: "What if a call has been made, but no one was there to hear it?" Our solution from Saturday morning sounds simple, but it solves a lot of problems: Save the call to an answering machine and make it available in the cloud, regardless of time and day, for people who want to digitise it remotely.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

None of us knew each other, yet the process went smoothly and we worked as a team. To create something like this in such a short time is something we are proud of.

What we learned

You can achieve incredible things with a group of such diverse and motivated people!

What's next for Nexd

  • Public relations work in the form of websites and social media (very soon)
  • Deployment on Android and iOS - Store (soon)
  • Improving upon the source code with an open-source community (Asap! - https://github.com/NexdApp)
  • Lots of ideas worth working on!

We believe in the contribution we can make and see the need for it. I hope you do, too!

For now contact us here or via Email here: mail@nexd.app

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