OHAI
Our Homeless App Idea - www.ohai-app.com
THE PROBLEM
Homelessness is a serious social problem. The State of Hawaii along with many non-profit organizations such as IHS are working extremely hard at solving this crisis.
One of the biggest challenges they face, is providing outreach teams with detailed and accurate information from referrals in a timely manner. IHS alone received at least 3,175 homeless referrals through, their website, businesses, hospitals and medical centers, emails, and phone calls. While they are spending precious time to process incoming referrals, they could have a streamlined workflow with real-time data at their fingertips.
This is where OHAI comes in.
THE STORY BEHIND OUR PROJECT
We wanted to take on a challenge, expand our knowledge base, and make a difference in the community. We all met through our company, PACXA, and came together as a team to bring a full stack solution. When we heard the Homeless Initiative pitch, we knew that this is the challenge we wanted to do! With very long nights, lots of coffee, too many movies, and one speeding ticket, we came up with our solution.
THREE APPLICATIONS ONE SOLUTION
O H A I consists of three vital applications to provide one solution. A mobile app, a responders app, and a web app. Why two separate mobile apps? We took the next step to ensure that our solution can be further secured when implemented by segregating application functionalities.
- Referral App: Allows users to create referrals, view and volunteer for events, read local news, and locate helpful resources.
- Responders App: Allows responders to quickly locate and assess referrals. They are also able to fill out the VI-SPDAT on their phone.
- Web App: Provides data organization and administrative functions for the application.
THE IMPACT OF OUR SOLUTION
What we have created for the homeless initiative is an end-to-end solution to assist with improving the lives of homeless and at-risk individuals. With O H A I we want to unite the community to address this problem together.
- General Public: Able to contribute to the community by providing responders with accurate information of those at risk.
- Homeless & At-Risk Individuals: A single place for them to find everything they need such as food, shelter, and assistance.
- Outreach Organizations: A more organized and streamlined workflow with easy access to important information.
- State and Cities of Hawaii: A single database solution for easier report creation and other data organization.
WHY OUR SOLUTION IS SUSTAINABLE
OHAI Is built using an open-source framework, Ionic, along with HTML5, CSS, and AngularJS. We have built our solution to be fully functional, a majority of the features have already been completed. The data processing and workflow has been streamlined by OHAI putting less strain on current organizations. What will be needed in order to fully implement this is:
- A database to integrate with
- A web server to deploy to
- The cost of deploying onto the App Stores (Apple $99/month and Google Play $25)
- A team to complete any additional functionality and implement.
HOW WE WORKED WITH THE DEPARTMENT CHALLENGE SPONSORS
We have consistently met and communicated with both Scott and Kimo throughout the entire development process. In doing so, we were able to understand where their primary needs and pain-points are, along with analyzing their current workflow and infrastructure. Utilizing the tools and resources they have provided us, we developed a solution that fits into day to day operations while identifying problems in between. O H A I is the platform to address these current issues.
TO ACCESS OUR DEMO
You will need to download “IONIC VIEW.” Available on iOS and Android. Once you’ve downloaded it, you can use our two APP ID’s to view our demos.
REFERRAL ID: 1666982c RESPONDERS ID: 7892a690
WHAT WE LEARNED AND CHALLENGES
Rapid mobile application development using the Ionic framework. Two very new experiences... for all of us.
One of our challenges was coming up with a name for the app… currently it is OHAI, which stands for: Our Homeless Application…. Idea. The name is DEFINITELY still pending.
TECHNOLOGY
O H A I uses a number of open source projects to work properly:
- HTML5
- CSS3
- AngularJS
- Javascript
- MySQL
- PHP
- Ionic Framework
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