SoundScape

Local businesses are the heart of Washington. We present SoundScape–where local businesses and consumers grow together.

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Inspiration

We noticed something familiar, people want to support their local community, but their money usually goes to big platforms because they offer smarter tech, automated loyalty, and seamless perks. Meanwhile, local businesses struggle to compete, and members miss out on rewards that could genuinely help their financial wellness.

Most Sound CU members want to shop local, but they don’t know where to go, what perks they can earn, or how much impact they're making. And businesses don’t have the tools that big retailers have to attract customers.

We asked ourselves: What if your Sound CU wallet didn’t just manage your money, but connected you to your community and maximized every dollar you spend?

That question became SoundScape, a smart rewards wallet that unifies credit perks, local loyalty, and community benefit in one place.

What it does

SoundScape is a AI powered Smart Local Rewards Wallet inside the Sound Credit Union ecosystem. It helps members automatically track and maximize:

1. Their Sound CU credit card perks 2. Local business loyalty rewards 3. Community impact from spending locally

At the same time, it gives local business owners automated tools to offer perks and reach Sound CU members without needing big-tech systems.

Every transaction through SoundScape becomes more than a payment — it’s a signal of community impact.

How we built it

  • Frontend: HTML/CSS, React
  • Backend: Node.js service simulating transactions, rewards, and impact scoring
  • Design: Figma Make, with Sound Credit Union color palettes
  • Data: Generated synthetic transaction data

Challenges we ran into

  • Designing one simple wallet that serves two very different users, while keeping UX seamless
  • Translating “community impact” into meaningful, motivating metrics
  • Balancing privacy while using spending data to generate insights The hardest part was earning user trust with data. We wanted to use data for good, not for tracking or ads. That meant building transparency directly into the experience:
  • users can see what’s shared, who benefits, and how they get rewarded.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Built a unified wallet experience that merges credit perks + local loyalty
  • Designed an AI assistant for merchants that writes offers instantly
  • Created a Community Wallet model rewarding members for shopping local
  • Delivered a judge-ready interactive prototype + functional logic

Most importantly, we proved how a credit union can be more than a bank, it can be a community commerce engine.

What we learned

  • Members don’t just want cashback, they want purposeful spending
  • Small businesses don’t need complex software, they need simple automation
  • Fintech grows fastest when financial benefit + emotional benefit reinforce each other
  • Credit unions are perfectly positioned to lead local-first financial ecosystems

What's next for SoundScape

  • Phase 1 — Pilot with Sound CU members + 20 local merchants Link cards, aggregate perks, launch local offers.
  • Phase 2 — Full Smart Wallet MVP Real card integrations + merchant onboarding + live rewards pool.
  • Phase 3 — Community Growth Engine Gamified spending challenges, neighborhood leaderboards, community boosts.
  • Long Term Vision SoundScape becomes the default local loyalty layer for credit unions, turning everyday purchases into financial + community value.

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