Saff

Five times a day the adhan goes off on campus, and most of us just keep walking. We either pray alone or skip the congregation, because finding other people who are free right now is a hassle. Saff is our fix for that. When the adhan hits, you get one ping asking if you're free to pray. Tap yes and you're dropped into a short-lived group chat with other students on your campus, brothers with brothers and sisters with sisters. You pick a spot, go pray together, and the chat disappears afterward. You can see each other's LinkedIn and Instagram if you want to stay in touch, and there's a streak for every day you pray in jama'ah. We made it for the Deen and Dunya track at the MTC x Replit x Manara West Buildathon.

We built the app in Expo and React Native, with real San Diego prayer times and push notifications that still reach you when the app is closed. A small Express and Socket.IO server on Replit runs the live groups, chat and streaks. Most of the pain was the unglamorous stuff: getting phones to connect over campus Wi-Fi, getting notifications to show up when the app wasn't open, and making sure groups never mix, which we tested instead of trusting. We also learned the lock-screen countdown we wanted needs a native iOS Live Activity, so that's the first thing we want to add next, along with more campuses and a real database.