Paw Link

Inspiration

The idea for PawLink started with something simple and familiar: seeing an injured stray animal on the road and feeling helpless. Many of us have experienced this — no proper system, no one to call, no clear steps to help. Every rescue today depends on luck, individual effort, and scattered WhatsApp groups. That moment of helplessness inspired us to build PawLink a platform that turns compassion into structured action. ❤️Why PawLink Matters PawLink is more than a hackathon project it’s a step toward a kinder, smarter city. A platform where citizens don’t feel helpless, volunteers respond faster, shelters stay organised, and animals get the timely care they deserve. Here are the links of research and survey papers regarding this problem 1.https://www.ijcrt.org/papers/IJCRT24A5100.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com 2.https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5bcef7b429f2cc38df3862f5/t/69172f2dfaea0774d3c41020/1763127085418/Stray_Dog_Issue_Brief-%2Blinkedin.pdf

What it does

PawLink creates a fast, organized rescue system for stray and lost animals. It takes scattered, uncoordinated help and turns it into a clear pipeline: someone reports an animal, the right people are notified instantly, the animal gets prioritized care, and the entire rescue is tracked from start to finish. In simple terms, PawLink makes sure no injured or missing animal is left unseen, unanswered, or unsupported.

How we built it

Core Features We Implemented We designed the UI in a clean, minimal style with a custom colour palette and role-based dashboards for both citizen and volunteer 📍 Instant Reporting with GPS, image upload, and an AI-based urgency triage bot 🗺️ Live Incident Map with colour-coded statuses 🚑 Volunteer Workflow: claim → update → resolve 🏥 Shelter Dashboard with real-time capacity visibility 🤖 Lost Pet Matching using image similarity 🚨 Emergency Mode showing nearest open vet + first aid 📊 StrayArchive for open rescue data, heatmaps, and trends

Challenges we ran into

⚠️ Challenges We Faced

1. Accuracy Working with real image matching required testing multiple embeddings and confidence thresholds.
2. Workflow Complexity Coordinating citizens → volunteers → shelters → data archive demanded careful role-based permissions.
3. Real-time Maps & Status Updates Keeping maps, lists, and dashboards all in sync was harder than expected.
4. Designing for Real-Life Edge Cases Aggressive animals, unverified reports, shelter overflow, and false alarms had to be considered.
5. No Code ≠ No Logic We still had to think like engineers: databases, triggers, conditions, data flows, and safety rules.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We realised the real problem isn’t a lack of people who care; it’s the absence of a unified, intelligent rescue system. Stray animals suffer because: reporting is slow and unorganised Volunteers don’t get real-time alerts Shelters don’t know their capacity status Injured animals aren’t triaged Lost pets look like strays No city has open rescue data PawLink was created to fill this gap end-to-end.

What we learned

We learned how no-code tools work, how to design effective prompts to build instant applications, and how teamwork, planning, and execution come together under tight submission deadlines.

What's next for Paw Link

1. City-Level Partnerships Collaborate with municipal corporations, animal welfare boards, and campus administrations to deploy PawLink as an official stray-rescue channel.
2. Full Shelter Integration Onboard more shelters and NGOs, automate capacity updates, and enable real-time routing to the nearest available facility.
3. AI Urgency v2 Introduce advanced injury detection using vision models to auto-identify bleeding, fractures, limping, or distress patterns from images and videos.
4. Automatic Duplicate Detection Use AI to detect duplicate incident reports in the same area to reduce noise and improve rescue efficiency.
5. Community Feeding Network Launch verified feeding zones, volunteer schedules, and supply tracking to create safe, organized feeding systems that reduce conflict.
6. Pet Identity & QR Tags Offer QR-based ID tags for pets so lost animals can be instantly identified and matched with owners through PawLink.
7. Multi-city StrayArchive Scale StrayArchive into a national dataset to help researchers, NGOs, and governments track hotspots, sterilisation impact, and seasonal trends.
8. Emergency 24×7 Hotline Integration Integrate PawLink with local ambulance services and emergency helplines to support critical injury cases.
9. In-App Training for Volunteers Enable bite-sized learning modules for safe handling, first aid, and rescue ethics to build a stronger, skilled volunteer base.
10. Adoption & Foster Pipeline Turn rescued animals into adoptable profiles automatically and connect them to interested families through verified onboarding.

Built With

• base44
• googlemapapi