NEXUS - Waltham Chamber of Commerce

Inspiration:

Waltham has countless businesses that care about making an impact on the local community and seek to hit their CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) goals. For the Waltham Chamber of Commerce, companies fulfilling these goals in support of local non-profits is enormously valuable for the community, and showcases the value of the Waltham Chamber of Commerce’s connectivity and impact.

What it does:

Through the NEXUS platform, for-profit organizations can fulfill their CSR goals by reaching out to various non-profit organizations, who also benefit in gaining publicity and potential resources and services. Non-profit organizations are invited to enter their information into the database with information like their mission statement, services provided to which target communities, and any services that they are requesting. For-profits can then enter what type of services they are willing to provide or a specific goal that they would be interested in collaborating towards. Offers and requests are then matched to connect for-profits organizations to non-profit organizations they deem the best fit for the CSR goals. This match-making system aims to build a more collaborative effort between organizations in the Waltham Chamber of Commerce and subsequently a more unified community. Because of the multitude of issues local non-profits face, providing them with an accessible platform to reach out for help can greatly reduce their struggles, and thus providing them more opportunities to help the Waltham community.

How we built it:

Building a platform with functionality, graphic design, frontend programming with AI implementation is no easy task. But properly delegating all the tasks could ensure that each of these tasks would be completed. Eyal Cohen, as the board fellow and project manager of our group, had a foot in all camps, oversaw everyone’s progress, and ensured no one was left behind especially when it came to learning something new. Binyamin and Alex, with their expertise in programming, produced a fully-interactive website that integrated with the ChatGPT API for smarter analysis. Wenli helped integrate GPT API into the match-making system using innovative prompt engineering techniques to produce the most accurate results for the users, and prepared this Devpost submission. Andrey and Chiara built and designed the website to integrate seamlessly onto the Waltham Chamber of Commerce existing website. And most importantly, Rebecca wrote and produced the final video, which was then edited by Eyal, to most effectively demonstrate the NEXUS platform as our group submission for DeisHacks’24. Although these tasks were all divided, constant collaboration and communication ensured that all aspects of the platform would complement each other.

The challenges:

Initially, it was difficult to determine what connections could be established between for-profit and non-profit organizations. Soon we realized that the CSR goals for for-profits can easily fill the gaps that many non-profit organizations had. So, we decided on an idea that connects one side’s weakness to another’s strength. It would be too simple to just supply each organization of a list on the opposite side; all the information is already accessible online. Instead, we could make a platform that not only makes this information easily accessible, but also tailors itself to each user. Enter NEXUS.

Built With

• javascript
• next.js
• openai
• typescript