Here To Help

Peer edited & reviewed database of essential service providers in the St. Louis Region. Wiki-Yelp for help!

Comment

Inspiration

We wanted to enable individuals and organizations to collaboratively maintain accurate information about services offered and allow users to share, review, and rate experiences with services they'd received

What it does

It serves as an interactive database that helps find resources and service providers within the community. It maintains this information through a collaborative wiki-style editing process where a community of users and organizations can contribute edits to this information.

In addition, it allows individuals to share their experiences, needs, concerns, and tips in a review/comment style feature for each place that is listed.

How we built it

We built a simple proof of concept using basic web technologies like HTML, CSS, and Javascript

Challenges we ran into

We struggled to come to consensus around our core concept for too long. We also spent a lot of time trying to build a highly-functional product based on the python Django framework before switching to something more minimalist. This ate up a lot of time because we lacked experience with the platform.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We started as complete strangers on day 1 and most of us had never attended a hackathon! We are super proud of how we came together as a team to create a concept and a product. We're also proud of the idea we eventually came up with and holding space for everyone to contribute to the brainstorming process.

What we learned

We learned a lot about hackathons: the importance of time management, keeping ideas and demos simple and lean, and how to work as a team.

Using giant frameworks you're not familiar with for simple prototypes is hard.

We all learned a lot about the complexity, nuance, and scope of issues facing foreign-born individuals in our communities.

What's next for Here to Help

Global Domination. Maybe another hackathon... ;)

Share this project:

Updates