Wake Up - Digital News App

Our Future Iteration of what the Wake Up App will look like

Inspiration

Wake Up emerged from observing a growing disconnect between news accessibility and news understanding. While information is abundant, tools that integrate credibility signals, context, and engagement at the point of consumption remain limited. This gap motivated our team to rethink how digital news platforms are designed.

What it does

Wake Up is a credibility-first news platform designed to help users understand and engage with current events more intentionally. Features include:

Em-Pact Links: Connect verified news stories to optional, clearly labeled impact opportunities, allowing users to engage or take action based on their own values.
News Aggregation: Aggregates reporting from credible sources, detects sensationalized language, and cross-checks claims across outlets to highlight differences in framing.
Credibility Assessments: Provides real-time, transparent confidence indicators that help users interpret reliability without making absolute truth claims.
Discussion Forums: Offers moderated, article-anchored spaces that encourage evidence-based conversation and thoughtful dialogue.

How we built it

We built Wake Up using a design-first, AI-assisted development approach. We began by prototyping the user interface and experience in Lovable, which helped us quickly define the app’s visual structure and interaction flow. For implementation and backend logic, we used Cursor alongside TypeScript to efficiently build, iterate, and maintain a reliable, scalable codebase. Moreover, using BizChat, an AI tool created by a Pitt student, allowed us to ground our technical work in a clear, student-driven business and impact framework.

Challenges we ran into

Our biggest challenge was taking an unconventional development path: front-end first, back-end second. While this approach allowed us to rapidly visualize and iterate on the user experience, it created friction when integrating data-heavy backend systems later in the process. Working backward from design to infrastructure meant we had to retrofit our API connections and credibility algorithms into an already-defined interface.

In hindsight, establishing a solid backend foundation first would have streamlined integration and given us more flexibility to adapt our frontend to the data structures we were working with. We also faced the learning curve of adopting multiple new tools simultaneously—Lovable, Cursor, and BizChat—each with its own workflows and capabilities. Balancing speed with stability while experimenting with unfamiliar platforms required constant communication and iterative problem-solving as a team.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We’re proud of creating a system that integrates credibility signals directly into the news experience rather than treating fact-checking as a separate step. We’re also proud of the Em-Pact feature, which bridges awareness and engagement while preserving user agency and neutrality.

What we learned

This project expanded our technical toolkit and our approach to building complex systems. We discovered the power of AI-assisted development—tools like BizChat, Lovable, and Cursor didn't just speed up our workflow; they fundamentally changed how we translate ideas into functional code and design. We learned that imagination and implementation can happen simultaneously when the right tools are in place. These platforms enabled us to prototype, iterate, and refine at a pace that would have been impossible with traditional development methods alone.

Most importantly, we learned the value of strategic sequencing. While our design-first approach helped us stay user-focused, we now understand that for data-intensive applications, a strong backend foundation allows frontend creativity to flourish without technical debt or integration bottlenecks.

What's next for Wake Up - Digital News App

Our vision for Wake Up extends far beyond the web. Here's what we're building next:

Mobile App Transformation Transitioning from a website to a native mobile app to meet users where they already consume news—on their phones, on the go.
Validate Spoken Claims in Real Time Users will be able to speak a claim or statement directly into the app, and Wake Up will instantly pull up credible news articles that either support or contradict it. Think of it as a real-time fact-checker for conversations, debates, and daily life.
Claim Evolution Timeline A visual timeline feature that tracks how specific claims or stories evolve over time across different sources. Users can see how credibility rises and falls, how narratives shift, and how public perception changes as new information emerges.
Gamification Elements To encourage informed engagement, we'll introduce achievement badges, leaderboards, and rewards for activities like reading diverse sources, contributing to discussions, and verifying claims. Making credibility interactive and rewarding.