the blueprint

mvp

The Problem & Opportunity Despite the groundbreaking achievements of Black alumni at Duke and UNC, there’s no central, engaging platformhighlighting their accomplishments or facilitating ongoing community engagement. Students, educators, and rising professionals often remain unaware of these inspirational figures, missing out on valuable networking and mentorshipopportunities.
Our Vision The Blueprint is a web-based platform that celebrates the top African American alumni from Duke and UNC and empowers a broader community to connect, vote, and collaborate. By spotlighting two living legends each year—with data-driven rigor and crowdsourced input—we ensure that trailblazers in fields such as medicine, law, sports, entrepreneurship, and the arts remain visible and accessible to future generations.
What We’re Building Dynamic Data Visualization Interactive dashboards displaying each alumnus’s major, graduation year, field, and notable milestones. A sorting algorithm that filters by university, graduation year, major, or post-graduation field—enabling users to customize how they view and discover alumni. Voting & Crowd-Based Curation Users can vote on the next set of “Top Alumni,” leveraging an algorithm that weighs both community popularity and impact metrics (awards, philanthropy, leadership roles). Each year’s Top Two are chosen from this blend of quantitative and qualitative data, ensuring transparency and ongoing interest. Networking & Community Platform In-platform messaging or comment sections that enable students, alumni, and recruiters to interact and share resources. A community builder feature where users can form or join interest groups (e.g., biotech, civil rights law, sports philanthropy) and find mentorship opportunities. Storytelling Approach Bio pages enriched with achievements, quotes, and timeline highlights. Embedded videos, interviews, and news articles to connect the data with compelling personal narratives.
Technology Stack Front End: React (or Vue) for dynamic dashboards and voting flows; D3.js or Chart.js for data visualizations. Back End: Node.js + Express serving a lightweight API with curated alumni data in a small SQL or NoSQL database. Sorting Algorithm: A custom or library-based approach that ranks alumni by votes, impact factors, and community feedback. Deployment: Hosted on Heroku or similar cloud platform for quick iteration and scale.
Impact & Differentiation Inspiration & Mentorship: Elevates African American trailblazers, inspiring current students, while fostering real connections that can lead to internships, job offers, and research collaborations. Continuous Engagement: Annual voting cycles keep the platform fresh, encouraging repeat visits and ongoing alumni updates. Community-Driven Insight: A unique blend of official data (awards, positions) and crowdsourced validation (upvotes, shares) ensures a holistic view of each alumnus’s contributions.
The Hackathon Angle Over the course of the hackathon, our team collected alumni data, built the prototype for the sorting and voting features, and launched a demo version of The Blueprint’s interactive dashboard. Next steps include refining the user interface, adding profile pages, enabling secure user registration, and implementing the networking functionality.
The Ask We’re looking for: Technical & Design Support: Volunteers or partners to refine the UI/UX and enhance the data visualizations. University & Alumni Office Partnerships: Official collaboration from Duke/UNC to expand the alumni dataset and integrate with existing alumni resources. Funding/Sponsorship: Resources to sustain development, host events, and promote the platform to student communities.

In Summary The Blueprint provides a compelling, interactive way to highlight, connect, and celebrate African American alumni of Duke and UNC. By harnessing data analytics, crowd input, and community building, we aspire to amplify the stories of living legends—serving as an ongoing inspiration for future trailblazers. Let’s build The Blueprint together and ensure that the next generation of innovators knows exactly whose footsteps they can follow.