Inspiration
Global supply chains are becoming increasingly volatile. Freight forwarders and mid-market exporters face disruptions from port congestion, extreme weather, geopolitical conflicts, tariff changes, and regulatory requirements such as the EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM).
While large enterprises use platforms costing hundreds of thousands of dollars annually, millions of SMEs and freight forwarders still rely on spreadsheets, emails, WhatsApp groups, and multiple carrier portals to manage operations.
We built OculusIQ to democratize supply chain intelligence and give freight forwarders the same level of visibility, risk prediction, and decision support that Fortune 500 companies enjoy—without the cost, complexity, or integration burden.
What it does
OculusIQ is an AI-powered Freight Intelligence Platform designed for freight forwarders and mid-market exporters.
The platform enables users to:
- Monitor all shipments and clients from a unified command center.
- Detect supply chain disruptions before they impact operations.
- Predict SLA breaches and identify at-risk shipments.
- Analyze tariff-adjusted landed costs for alternative routes.
- Track carbon emissions and CBAM-related exposure.
- Generate client-ready WhatsApp alerts in seconds.
- Parse Bills of Lading using AI and automatically create shipment records.
- Run disruption simulations to understand business impact before crises occur.
- Interact with an AI Intelligence Officer that understands shipment, client, and risk context.
How we built it
Backend
- FastAPI
- Python
- SQLite
- Gemini AI
Frontend
- React
- Vite
- Recharts
- Modern responsive UI
Data & Intelligence
- Open-Meteo for weather intelligence
- GDACS for disaster and disruption monitoring
- Nominatim geocoding
- AI-powered document parsing
- Risk scoring and simulation engines
- SLA prediction models
- Tariff and landed cost analysis
The system combines live external intelligence with shipment and client data to generate actionable recommendations for logistics teams.
Challenges we ran into
One of the biggest challenges was transforming fragmented logistics data into meaningful business intelligence.
We needed to:
- Correlate shipment data with external disruptions.
- Build explainable risk scoring models.
- Generate practical recommendations instead of raw analytics.
- Create a workflow that freight forwarders could actually use without ERP integrations.
- Balance real-time intelligence with a lightweight architecture suitable for SMEs.
Another challenge was designing the platform around operational workflows rather than purely technical features.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
- Built an end-to-end freight intelligence platform instead of a simple tracking dashboard.
- Integrated real-world disruption intelligence sources.
- Developed AI-powered Bill of Lading parsing.
- Created tariff-adjusted landed cost analysis for route decision-making.
- Implemented SLA breach prediction to help freight forwarders proactively protect client commitments.
- Added WhatsApp-native client communication workflows.
- Designed the platform specifically for an underserved market segment: freight forwarders and SME exporters.
What we learned
This project taught us that supply chain visibility alone is not enough.
Operations teams need:
- Context
- Predictions
- Recommendations
- Communication tools
We also learned that solving real business problems creates significantly more value than simply adding AI features. The biggest opportunities often exist in underserved markets where existing enterprise solutions are too expensive or too complex.
What's next for OculusIQ
Our roadmap includes:
- Real-time carrier integrations
- Advanced ETA prediction models
- Multi-client freight forwarder workspaces
- Automated client reporting
- Expanded tariff intelligence coverage
- Carbon compliance reporting
- Mobile-first operations workflows
- Predictive disruption forecasting using historical event data
Our long-term vision is to become the operating system for freight forwarders and mid-market exporters worldwide, delivering enterprise-grade intelligence without enterprise-grade costs.
Built With
- fastapi
- gdacs-api
- git
- google-gemini-ai
- javascript
- nominatim-geocoding-api
- open-meteo-api
- python
- react
- recharts
- rest-apis
- sqlite
- vite
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