SheOwnsIt

As a student, our world is usually defined by textbooks and classrooms. But the most powerful lesson we learned this year happened in a small, vibrant room filled dedicated to weaving looms. It was a local women's textile cooperative, and we were there for a community visit.

We watched as the women, who were incredible artisans, created beautiful sarees. They explained to me how their cooperative functioned: they worked together with their skills, shared the large orders, and then split the profits based on who contributed what. It was an amazing system, yet a major flaw was that it was built on trust. Contribution was recorded manually, and that could be easily manipulated. Say, an order was complete, but the salary was delayed, since there were disagreements in the splitting of money. We saw how a simple lapse in memory could threaten their income and shatter the trust that held their small business together. As a student,we were struck by the injustice that these women had done the work, but without proof, their earnings were vulnerable.

In that moment, the idea for SheOwnsIt was born. We thought, what if we could use the technology we learn about in class to build a "digital ledger" that couldn't be disputed? Our goal became simple: to create a tool that ensures Her work. Her money. Her independence.

This was the birth of our project, SheOwnsIt. First, we started by building a digital record to replace guesswork with a system where women log their work with a photo and a QR code.

The process starts the moment a woman finishes her work, like a hand-embroidered saree. She opens the SheOwnsIt app and uses the ‘Log Work’ feature. She takes a clear photo of the completed piece. With that single action, the app automatically generates a unique QR code and stamps the entry with the date and time visible to her colleagues.

But trust in a cooperative is a community effort. This is where Peer Verification comes in. When another member scans this QR code with her own phone, she sees the saree’s details and can confirm the work is complete and up to standard. This simple feature builds a community-validated trust score for everyone. It transforms potential arguments over "who did what" into a silent, collective agreement.

But we soon realized that proving how much you earned was only half the battle. The real challenge was ensuring that the money you earned actually remained yours.

That’s when we had my second breakthrough. We spoke with a woman who confided that she often had to hide her cash from her family by stashing small amounts in different places, living in fear that her hard-earned savings would be discovered and taken by her spouse or in-laws. Her money was never truly her own. This led me to the core of my project now: the Automated Salary Split.

The moment her work is verified and paid for by the cooperative, her earnings don’t fully land in one account. They are automatically divided, according to her wishes. She chooses the percentage (maybe 70% for daily life, 30% for her future). The first portion goes into her Main Account for groceries, school fees, and family needs. The second portion flows directly into her Secret Vault. This vault can be accessed only by clicking a specific image, as seen in the demo. No husband, no shop owner, no one can see it or touch it without her direct consent. It is money guaranteed to reach her, and only her. This feature is for the woman with a controlling family, for the one who has never had a private financial space in her life, for the one secretly saving for a sewing machine to start her own business.

The prototype attached is made with Figma and Stitch (for mockups). The actual platform would be made with React Native, Firebase, Cloud Functions, QR Code Generator (qrcode.js).

Trust, digitized for her : )