Vita

Online banking tool for individuals with dementia

Comment

Inspiration

Over 6 million Americans of all ages have Alzheimer's. And over 7 million American’s experience dementia. This number will only increase-- expected number of citizens with dementia to be nearly 12 million by 2040. These vast numbers can only indicate that these memory-loss disorders are an important issue that most of us disregard on a daily basis. Now Imagine you wanted to buy a large gift for your family, but you couldn't even pinpoint a guess on how much money you had in your account.

One of the biggest issues people with dementia have is everything and anything to do with finances. Handling money and paying bills without an advisor is a tricky lifestyle that would only cause confusion and irritation for these people.

What it does

Vita is a digital banking solution that allows for supervision over a savings account owned by an individual incapable of managing their finances. It allows a family member or other trusted guardian to set a weekly allowance for a dependent/patient and keep track of their purchases and authorization or refuse attempted purchases that go beyond the weekly allowance.

How we built it

  • Frontend: React Native, expo
  • Backend: Python (flask), Twilio API, Mongo DB

Challenges we ran into

Working with React Native for the first time was stressful, especially when needing to debug small syntax errors. Also, we had a hard time with trying to connect our React Native app with our Flask backend through our APIs. None of us had worked with React native before, and none of us had an extensive experience connecting frontend with backend server calling APIs.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Learning how to implement a full database and respective API calls into the frontend and backend in a short amount of time
  • How our frontend design matched our Figma prototype almost identically

What we learned

  • Improved our knowledge of real time messaging with Twilio API
  • Learning mobile development with React Native
  • What parts of the brain Dementia and Alzheimer's affects and how simple, daily tasks can be a hassle

What's next for Vita

  • Add credit/debit cards onto both homepages to make financial tracking easier (issues in security will need to be looked into)
  • Tracking the dependent using geolocation services to make sure they are safe at all times, especially where they spend large amounts of money
  • Emergency contact page along with 911 instant calling feature
Share this project:

Updates