We are building a cash-back platform that will support an unlimited number of cashback ecosystems, all of them using their own digital token minted on the Hedera Token Service.
Our first such ecosystem will be a 100% social project, which should bring tourists to a very beautiful place where people are impoverished. One of our team members has been working for the past year developing a Strategy for economic diversification and growth for the former coal mining region called the Jiu Valley. The Jiu Valley is a place in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania, in which 100k people live a life of shortcomings and sufferings. Their life changed drastically in the past 30 years, as the local pit coal mines ceased their activity. Many, especially the young generations, left the Jiu Valley in a desperate search for jobs. Those which remained here live a life of subsistence and seems like the entire society has given up.
Only a tourist can still see the beauty of the local surroundings, enjoy the clean air, and admire the local cultural heritage. And the Jiu Valley has plenty to offer! It is surrounded by natural reservations such as the Retezat Park and the Nature 2000 sites. The Jiu Valley has 2 ski areas, some of the best mountain bike trails in Europe, hundreds of natural caves and an impressive industrial heritage. The local food is all natural and many dishes are unique in the world. Here is an aerial view of the Jiu Valley: https://youtu.be/dhMinld5hLM
We want to build a cash back ecosystem in which all local vendors could collaborate, by giving and accepting The Jiu Valley Token, in order to gamify the touristic experience. This cashback system will lead to: longer stays of the tourists, increased daily spending, a higher chance for tourists to return and attracting new people in the area through referral-type incentives. Such a cash-back system will allow visitors to enjoy the most gamified tourist experience in Eastern-Europe and, as a result, local economy will have better chances of recovery.
But this will be only one ecosystem. We are building a platform that will support an unlimited number of them. Some ecosystems will even overlap geographically, making the participants migrate towards the one which gives the best rewards.
In all fairness, our prototype is very far from our vision, but it shows how the transactions between parties take place. We’ve also talked to vendors in the Jiu Valley, with the largest entrepreneurs there, and they are willing to participate in such an ecosystem, hopeful that such a tool would help the population get out of poverty.
In order to get closer to our vision, we aim to have more resources to hire back-end and front-end developers.
The Technology
We worked closely with Hedera's Token Service via their Java Software Development Kit, along with the SpringBoot framework and React Native. On the backend we have succeeded in developing our main features--a cashback system of 5% of each transaction of FIAT currency, rewards, promotions, and sending tokens to both users and vendors-- all done through the Jiu Valley Token we created on HTS.
Our react-native mobile application allows you to sign up and have an account with both Hedera and TokaBank. You can send Jiu Valley Tokens to anyone else that has also created an account with us via their AccountId. Both our backend developer and team were new to a lot of the technology, from the frameworks to Hedera's SDK. It was a challenge that none of the team members had previous Hedera Hashgraph programming experience.
Our projects vision is much more complex and we would have required more help on the front-end and back-end. We learned a lot about Hedera's distributed ledger and are excited to continue working with it ! We are also incredibly grateful for the resources provided by Hedera to help students and developers gain familiarity with their ledger and strengthen their skills.
Built With
- airtableapi
- docker
- expo.io
- heroku
- java
- javascript
- react-native
- springboot
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