Motivation
For numerous SMEs, the Corona crisis is also an existential crisis. They are forced to close their stores, have their supply chains disrupted, their production processes shut down or their customers simply stop turning up due to far-reaching lockdowns. Many SMEs are overwhelmed by the number of challenges and unforeseeable consequences. KMU vs. Corona provides a central platform that combines a collection of general and sector-specific problems with solution ideas to support SMEs in the current situation.
What the platform does
KMU vs. Corona provides sector-specific and problem-specific knowledge and solution approaches for German SMEs. Working with experts and information from the internet, we identified the major challenges for SMEs right now, as well as potential solutions. KMU Vs. Corona maps solutions with problems and in turn links the problems to one or more of the six main target groups we defined. The end-user visits our website as a handyman, hairdresser or independent artist and chooses the target group or industry they identify with, finding relevant problems and solutions ready listed.
Challenges we ran into
The majority of our team had limited to no experience in React and NodeJS. Nevertheless, we managed to build the front and backend of our service within two days. Additionally, we had to figure out how to organize our data structure in the best way in order to realize a scalable solution. Also, it was quite challenging to identify solutions that could be beneficial even to the owners of SME with oftentimes many decades of experience in their line of business. We received feedback from a mentor on this and collaborated with another hackathon group providing a survey to SMEs during the hackathon challenge, as well as researching more refined solutions.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
Developing from scratch and publishing a working website with a fully functional frontend and backend within 48 hours. Doing our part in fighting this - in our lifetimes - unprecedented public health crisis.
What we learned
A great team can move mountains even in a limited amount of time.
What's next for KMU vs. Corona
- The integration of a dynamic up- and downvoting system for both the severity of problems and the usefulness of suggested solutions which should significantly enhance the scalability of our platform
- The addition of a submission page that allows visitors of our site to enter their own problems and suggested solutions into our databases; the voting mechanism outlined above will ensure that abuse is prevented and visitors are consistently shown high-quality content
- Further cooperation with the Coronavigator groups working on (i) the SME survey and (ii) digital business models and solutions for SMEs
- The integration of a dynamic map showing the locations and offers of a user-supplied small and medium-sized business
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