Inspiration
We were inspired, as young women ourselves, to be able to inspire other young women to take responsibility and learn more about investing money and increasing their financial literacy skills. After some quick market research, we learned the women are significantly less likely to be investing their money than men and overall, less financially literate. We found that to be an appalling statistic given the brilliant contribution potential we know that women possess in the finance sector and our positive impact on the community. When a woman succeeds, she is more likely to take her entire family with her.
What it does
She Invests connects young individuals to seek ways to improve their knowledge of finance by connecting them to mentors and resources to expand their abilities. She Invests educates people regarding the benefits of investing money from an early age, to spend their money a little bit more consciously and to seek potential different financial goals to meet their short term (i.e. tuition) and long term (i.e. properties or capital for a startup) targets. The web app does this by integrating a variety of persuasive techniques including an interest calculator which will put into perspective the length of time investments can turn rewards, an engaging landing page, and a youth targetted "why to invest" page featuring a gif. The web app features two "call to action" items which users can benefit in order to launch their financial endeavours. The first is the find a financial advisor near me using a Google Maps API, so the user can locate their nearest banks and begin their hunt alone. The next is our in-house mentorship program in which people can sign up to meet in person or virtually with people who have experience in investing and are not a part of the banking "universe". We believe that mentorship is an integral component of bridging any inequality gap and we want it at the forefront of our solution as well.
How we built it
We built She Invests through HTML, JavaScript and CSS. We knew that the solution was going to be web-based so we brainstormed, spoke with sponsors and conducted market research until 4:30 pm for the introduction into web design. There, we learned the fundamentals of HTML but little did we know we were going to be using Java and CSS as well. Based on the advice of a TD Java developer, we split up our work into the individual webpages that needed to be done as well as creating actual content for the website itself. The bulk of the CSS was used in the UI generation of the landing page, API integration and the calculator itself required significant use of Java.
Challenges we ran into
Our first challenge came during mid-day when 2 members of different teams dropped out. However, we were very ambitious in wanting to take part in the hackathon even with our minimal coding experiences. Being a team of beginners, we had no idea what project we were going to do and how we were going to accomplish it. With the help of the workshops and mentors, we were given direction and were able to get started. There were numerous coding challenges throughout the day, we took the initiative to meet with the sponsors and mentors who were able to assist us in accomplishing our goal. A special shoutout to the MLH and google cloud mentors for their patience and support throughout the whole night, they added tremendous value to our SheHacks IV experience.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We are proud that we were able to incorporate the API into our project without prior experience with the technology. We are also proud that we did not give up and achieved our vision. It was an accomplishment that we were able to come together as a team despite not knowing the other and coming together as a team in the last minute. We are also proud that we were able to enjoy the experience and form deep connections.
What we learned
As a team, we learned how to work during a hackathon, what takes place during a day, and the amount of hard work that went into the event. We were also able to see the extent of work that we were capable of doing and our potential. We also learned HTML by adding images, adding different fonts, and combining different URLs together. We had the opportunity to gain experience with the Google Cloud API application which was an instrumental part in the development of our project. Additionally, we wanted to challenge ourselves so we created a calculator that determined net profits from investments.
What's next for SheInvests
We hope that the project inspires young individuals to seek in improving their financial literacy skills and use technology in further expanding future projects.
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