Solace

SOLACE is a mobile app that empowers social workers nationwide with AI-powered tools for case management, documentation, and collaboration.

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Inspiration

Social workers are the unsung heroes of our society—balancing large caseloads, bureaucratic hurdles, and emotionally draining tasks, often without the tools to match their mission. We wanted to build something that doesn’t just “use AI,” but genuinely serves the people who serve others. We were inspired by real interviews and research that revealed how overburdened systems leave both social workers and their clients underserved. SOLACE was born to fill that gap with empathy-driven AI tools.

What it does

SOLACE is an AI-powered assistant designed to support social workers with their most time-consuming responsibilities. Our platform allows social workers to:

  • Log and manage important tasks (to-dos, deadlines, appointments)
  • Auto-summarize long case notes using state-of-the-art AI
  • Surface key client needs and connect them to local resources
  • Work faster, with more clarity—without compromising on care

How we built it

  • Frontend: React + Tailwind CSS for a clean, mobile-responsive UI
  • Mobile:React Native, Expo SDK 51+, React Navigation -Web: Next.js 15, React 18+, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, Vercel deployment
  • Backend: Node.js for routing and Python for AI processing

AI Integration:

  • Hugging Face BART model for classifying client case notes
  • Sentence transformers for contextual resource matching
  • Claude AI for monthly and quarterly report insight generation
  • Data Design: Local-only sensitive data handling to preserve privacy

Challenges we ran into

  • Privacy vs Personalization: Designing a system that respects confidentiality while remaining context-aware
  • Multiple AI Pipelines: Combining different models (NLP, embeddings) into a single cohesive product
  • Time Constraints: Training useful models and implementing them meaningfully under strict hackathon time limits

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Successfully integrating AI APIs and models for the first time as a team
  • Implementing real-time voice input and processing tools
  • Creating a product that doesn’t just look polished—but serves a purpose

What we learned

  • How to fine-tune and use pretrained NLP models for real-world tasks
  • Key frontend skills in React and Tailwind
  • Voice AI tools and how to work with APIs under pressure
  • Collaborative development and ethical AI thinking, all under 36 hours

What's next for Solace

  • Expand to include appointment scheduling, live calling, and multi-user collaboration
  • Build a client-facing version of the app so individuals can find help directly
  • Improve AI accuracy with more training data, and add support for multilingual and mobile accessibility
  • Launch a beta program with real social workers and gather feedback

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