Violae

Violae strives to amplify and celebrate the marginalized voice through the empowerment of community engagement in self-reported data and highlight places in the community that create safe spaces.

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Inspiration

In 2020, Colorado reported 283 hate crime incidents. We experienced record highs in the last 30 years with the 3rd consecutive year with an increase in rates. This breaks down into:

  • 184 were race/ethnicity/ancestry based
  • 49 were sexual orientation based
  • 10 were gender identity based
  • 5 were disability based

Hate crimes in the US are at their highest in 12 years due to a spike in hate crimes towards Black Americans and Asian Americans.

  • Hate crimes towards Asians increased 77%
  • Hate crimes towards Black Americans increased 43%

What it does

Violae strives to support, amplify, and celebrate the marginalized voice through the empowerment of community engagement in self-reported data. Our product allows users to:

  • Research areas in their community that create safer spaces
  • Provide reviews based on their personal experiences in local businesses
  • Highlight businesses that break systemic oppressions
  • Provide resources for marginalized communities

How we built it

Our mock-up was first written out on paper then translated into Figma. Our branding and logos used Adobe products for design. Maps and geolocation data is provided through Google Maps.

Challenges we ran into

Our largest struggle was being able to create a wholesome and relevant app that demonstrates the complexity of the human experience.

In addition, as most of our experience is within backend development and utilization, this was one of our first endeavors in front end, which was difficult to achieve.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're super proud to build a consistent brand image, have a usable product, and be able to demo this within a less than 24 hour period. This product truly highlights the best of all of our skills and encompasses lots of our strengths.

What we learned

We've learned a lot from each other - especially being able to navigate the difficulty of Figma and overcoming this within this time period, understanding accessibility concerns, and being able to develop a consistent brand image that best represents a safe and welcoming experience.

What's next for Violae

With future iterations of this application, we hope to:

  • Focus and highlight accessibility to ensure that our application celebrates all people
  • Provide translational information to enhance the experience for international users and promote international travel
  • Find and improve ways to target and develop resources that maximize the benefit for all communities
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