Tarsheed - ترشيد

Inspiration

Living in Sudan, it's common to see water leaking from broken pipes on roadsides — sometimes for weeks — with no clear way to report it. This daily sight, combined with Sudan’s ongoing water crisis, inspired the idea behind Tarsheed ("rationalization"). I wanted to build a simple tool that gives people the power to act, even if it's just by reporting a problem.

What it does

Tarsheed is a web app that allows citizens to report leaking pipes on streets and roads. Users can: -Take a photo of the leak -Add a short description -Submit the report to a central dashboard

On the admin side, authorities or NGOs can:

View incoming reports
track repair status

How we built it

Frontend:

React.js Backend:
Node.js + Express.js (REST API)
MongoDB

Challenges we ran into

Working around limited internet speeds, especially for uploading media
Electricity blackout for hours
Designing a lightweight UI that's intuitive, even for non-tech-savvy users
Managing file uploads (images/videos) smoothly without crashing the app

What we learned

Building real-world apps for low-infrastructure environments requires thoughtful UX decisions
Simple ideas can have big impact when connected to real needs
Every technical stack has trade-offs — especially with media uploads and mobile optimization