Team Kleos

Inspiration

Before starting TechJam, we knew we wanted to work on a solution for a good cause. After brainstorming ideas around FinTech for Good, we agreed to focus on the opportunities for providing resources to the homeless.

When brainstorming, we talked about scenarios when homeless people don’t have access to the necessities of life. One specific example that inspired us was discussing a scenario where a woman may be in need of feminine hygiene products and have limited resources. These are challenges that most of us don’t need to consider on a daily basis, but can greatly impact individuals living in precarious housing situations.

What it does

With the rise of digital banking, cash transactions are less common. We have each experienced a time in the past of being unable to help those in need on the street due to the absence of cash in our pocket.

The vision for WishBee is to surface access to products or resources through funds collected from TD mobile app users.

WishBee plans to build an API that can be leveraged by existing user facing channels to connect those looking to donate to those in need of goods or services. Existing channels include:

Donation collection through TD Mobile App
Chalmers bot which is used by homeless people today
Retailers that are willing to participate

The plan is for WishBee to aggregate funds donated from TD mobile app users with products and services available from local retailers. By leveraging existing channels, we can focus on building the product catalogue with retailers and returning those offers to Chalmers.

How we built it

We focused on a UX prototype for the TD mobile app donation experience and the offer redemption process for the homeless via Chalmers.

We also worked out what the high-level technical implementation would look like.

Challenges we ran into

At first, our approach was not focused on creating a standalone API and discussed building something within the Chalmers environment. However, we decided that a standalone API is more useful for this community-based project. This prototype can be scaled to work with other banks and Chalmers-style apps available worldwide, and seamlessly enhance existing local solutions.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud that we could combine our skill sets to develop a prototype meant to solve a real-world social issue that affects populations worldwide. We offer a solution that can be built into existing apps and pilots, allowing adaptation to specific community needs and circumstances.

What we learned

Access to mobile devices amongst the homeless is much higher than we expected. 90% of homeless people have a mobile device and 77% of these devices are smartphones.

There is an existing donation page on the TD EasyWeb product but, it’s not promoted and there is no concept of micro-donation. There are also only two options for charities.