Dura Hekima

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  The essence of the app.

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  Flow of the System

Inspiration

As an entrepreneur I have benefited from conversations with founders, business people and fellow builders. They are often the most informative and inspirational. 5-10 years of knowledge could easily be passed on through a single conversation. A recent conversation amongst builders at an Akayi (local startup community in Zimbabwe) sparked a conversation about what if we could create a startup directory. I tapped into my previous experience working at 2 hubs and hosting events that had us bring in business people to talk about a time when they messed up at Impact Hub Harare, the inspirational moments shared in the i5 hub on the Africa Universiy campus, where peers shared notes on pitching and raising funds. I cherish those memories and more, even more I hold dearly the pieces of advice i got from these sessions and still use the lessons to this day.

I make mistakes, and I know many more startup leads and founders make mistakes. What us we could be proactive and document these mistakes, the pitfalls and the wins so that founders and startup leads can stop repeating avoidable mistakes and stop paying as we call it the "the school fees of entrepreneurship" just because the lessons and avice is not structured , searchable or verified. In creating this app i wanted to create an open data directory that celebrates wins, captures “missed opportunities,” and preserves stories (including closed and pivoted startups) so the next founder moves faster.

What it does

The app keeps a record of startups that sign up and want to share their storieswith others or benefit from the insights of those who started before them. The user can use multiple filters to search for the startup that best aligns with them. They can read their story, listen to an audio or read through valuable insights based on the

How I built it

I used AI Studio and broke the application down into three parts: the first part was the overall vision, the second was the app's design or vibe, and the third was the functionality optimization. My prompts were based on these three sections. I went on to add in prompts to adjust the app based on these principles and envisioning the app from the perspective of three personas, which are the entrepreneur, the hubs/accelerators and the platform administrator, adding functionality as I went.

Challenges I ran into

On AI Studio, I ran into a few syntax errors, one of which had to do with a JSON block not being properly parsed and complaining of trailing commas, which I manually removed. I kept getting the error Unexpected token','. I also faced a challenge with the Lucide property configurations not being created properly, creating a continuous loop of errors. The most consistent was the app.tsx file not being uploaded and the actions and change request being terminated each time on update.

Accomplishments that I am proud of

I am proud that I was able to bring an idea to life and add my own touch to it so that it is not just a directory of startups but a storytelling platform. This makes me happy because in my culture, we share lessons of caution, celebrate people and their achievements through storytelling, it's how we connect and relate. I think this platform reflects the "ubuntu" culture that raised me.

What I learned

The idea is more complicated than I thought, especially in the management of the platform.

What's next for Dura Hekima

Piloting it to startups by tapping into some old hub contacts so that their teams can look at the data and share feedback on how it can be enhanced. Creating a coded solution and deploying it on the cloud. The first version may be Python-based. I am also looking forward to updating the application with the following features:

1. Curated playlists of lessons (e.g., “Idea → MVP → Seed”).
2. Optional mentor visibility with opt-in discovery.
3. A program finder by stage and region.
4. Community-led taxonomy stewardship for consistent tagging And definitely collaboration with other developers to make this cooler.

Built With

• aistudio
• cgcp
• geminiapi