Tech & Tea

Summary

Good Neighbour, a hackathon project by team Tech & Tea, is solving the problem of trust within the community fundraising space in two ways:

1 Automating Transparency

• Organizations can easily connect their project to a Canadian bank account.
• The transaction history is recorded to an immutable blockchain ledger
• Spending for the project is automatically reported to donors.

2 Crowdsourcing Auditing

• Network of donors keeping community project accountable
• Administrative burden of auditing spread among donors

In this way, we hope to enable individuals to give to causes within their communities with confidence.

What it does

We started with a design thinking exercise where we reflected on problems in the non-profit sector. We then created hi-fi mockups using Figma which our developers then implemented using node.js and express.js in conjunction with TD APIs.

How we built it

We started with a design thinking exercise where we reflected on problems in the non-profit sector. We then created hi-fi mockups using Figma which our developers then implemented using node.js and express.js in conjunction with TD APIs.

Challenges we ran into

Group alignment on a problem, solution and idea to develop. As a team of 6, each member brought forward different ideas on what we should work on. To get alignment on what we should work on, our group completed a design thinking activity. By completing this activity, we were able to work through problems and solutions together as a team.

Communicating technical and design decisions under time constraints. Our team consisted of members with diverse skills sets (e.g. development, design, research, communications). Given the time constraints of the challenge, we had to iterate and make technical/design challenges quickly. In the beginning of our project there were times changes to aspects of our project (iteration on the UI design, change in the data set, etc), were not communicated to everyone on our team. As a result, later in our project, our team made sure to incorporate check-ins to better verbally communicate key changes.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of creating an innovative and viable solution for a pressing problem in the crowdfunding space. We’re also proud of our teamwork and being able to come together and ship this project over a weekend!

What we learned

• We learned that you need to pivot (our ideas changed a few times)
• The importance of having a team of diverse skill sets
• The value of team synergy in getting things done
• Get feedback early
• Take advantage of subject matter experts throughout the process

What's next for The Good Neighbour

Although this idea was developed specifically for the FinTech for Good challenge, our team is interested in continuing to work on our project after Elevate TechJam. Reflecting on our research on crowdfunding and the challenges faced by small local organizations and donors who want to do good in their communities, we see there is a need for a tool like Good Neighbour. In regards to next steps, our team will test our website with relevant users to gather feedback and iterate on the platform. Our next major milestone is to optimize our platform for mobile.

Built With

• css
• e.js
• figma
• html
• javascript
• tdapis