Inspiration
This project takes inspiration from LinkedIn to be a professional network. But with the STEM Industry suffering from various forms of Gender, Racial and Religious discrimination, we found that it is crucial to have a professional network that'd be able to hide such information for some parts of hiring, without hiding the awesome achievements and experiences. While it won't be able to hide such information in the more involved stages of the recruitment process like Interviews, it'd help overcome:
- Algorithmic Bias: Most companies use AI to filter out the candidates in the first stage of hiring. Here, hiding gender and racial information will make sure that the bias in the hiring data (historically strong) does not persist in the future.
- Initial Screenings: Post the AI Screenings, there are several stages of human screenings, which might introduce a bias to the process. Low-levels employees may not have a good idea of the inclusion policies and goals of the company, and may subconsciously introduce discrimination. Hiding sensitive information from them can strongly help with eliminating bias.
- While our App cannot help with Interviews and other involved stages, they are usually carried out by senior employees who have an understanding of the best practices and try to actively avoid any discrimination.
Moreover, we all understand that while LinkedIn surely supports Corporate methodologies, the modern STEM workplace is much more than suits and meetings. We wanted to create a platform where people can share what they love about their work freely with their professional network. We wanted to create a platform where people can share their workplace and professional achievements of any form, and be seen by recruiters and peers in the best possible and in their own unique way.
What it does
- Provides an open platform for Students and Professionals to network and share their professional experiences and achievements.
- Converts Achievements and Experiences to a gender and race neutral form. Example: “Marketing Officer at Women in Tech Club Unimelb” is converted to “Marketing Officer at a University Technology Club” “96% Marks in grade 12 at Delhi Public School, India” is converted into “A+ Academic Performance in High School”
- Analyses Companies’ hiring decisions and employee data to infer a public “Diversity and Inclusion Score” to incentivize companies to move towards sustainable and ethical hiring and promoting practices.
- Provides Customisable Profile Pages so users can express themselves in creative forms and highlight their achievements and experiences in an authentic way.
- Supports wide-range of media tools and integrations to allow users to share their projects and insights in new and visual ways.
- Creates discussion channels for Events and Meetups so people can connect with each other and share pictures, and projects naturally.
How we built it
We started out with planning and brainstorming of Ideas about what project we could build, and how it will positively impact the world. Once we decided upon the idea, we narrowed down the features we wanted to build.
With the features in mind, we planned out the tech-stack considering the skill sets of our team and previous experiences. With the majority of us comfortable with designing and building for Mobile, we decided to develop an Android App and use an ExpressJS and MongoDB backend as it is the industry standard and we were excited about learning it.
With the stack finalized, we started developing the Figma prototype as well as the Database Models in parallel. Alongside this, we split responsibilities and worked independently on the Front-End, Back-end, Design and Pitching, with frequent catch-ups so we stay consistent with the vision and the pieces fit in well with each-other.
Lastly, we collaboratively worked on the Documentation and made final touches to the pitch deck and video script to put our best ideas forward.
Challenges we ran into
Platform and technical stack to use Initially we explored various ideas for deployment such as chromium-based extension and web app but we decided to settle for an Android app for a tech demo. Further, it wasn’t very clear which backend would be suitable for our use case. We explored ExpressJS, DJango, Flask and Ruby on Rails. With each having their own pros and cons and our limited experience with either, it was a very difficult decision. With our diverse team with varying skill sets, it was challenging to choose on the best platform that all of us would be comfortable with and would best suit our use case. We decided to settle for an Android App with ExpressJS backend for demo purposes, but hope to expand to multiple platforms for maximum outreach. Narrowing or Widening the scope for the app Problem: We initially started from issues faced by women and discriminations that takes place for example when they submit their resume. We could specify towards gender biases when it comes to recruiting Solution: We decided to expand our scope and target biases in general hopefully in that regard We take up the mantel for a bigger issue as whole The app would actually serve it’s purpose (A women focused recruitment platform would clearly have more women hence defeating the purpose of removing biases) Time Constraints: While we tried our best, everyone of us had additional commitments throughout the weekend, making it difficult for us to complete the project within the limited timeframe of less than 48 hours. We have made significant progress on the design, front-end and the back-end but due to last minute errors, we are unable to deploy the project. We still hope and plan to complete this project on our own time since we believe it can have a positive impact in workplaces.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
Theme and UI: We managed to develop a beautiful and friendly theme and design for our App that reflects our idea of creativity and expression. The Idea: Starting out as an initiative to support Women in STEM, we iteratively developed on the idea to conceptualize a professional network that helps eliminate discrimination and supports creative freedom that we feel in itself is startup worthy. Rapid Learning: Developing this project within the restricted timeframe forced us to learn several technologies at a rapid pace. In the face of challenge, we have developed critical skills that’d surely help us in our careers.
What we learned
Daksh: Converting Figma prototypes to Android UIs (XML) Writing Documentation for Software Projects Praghashkumar: Developing back-end in DJango Collaborating with Teams to develop projects Designing pitch-decks in Canva Jennifer: Developing back-end with DJango and ExpressJS Designing DB Models to store real-world data.
What's next for Where's Danny - The Professional Network for Awesome People
A New Name: While Where’s Danny is an awesome placeholder for this project, we plan to decide on a more professional name very soon. Fine-tuning AI: Our current NLP model is very basic and isn’t strong enough to filter out many proxies for sensitive information. We plan to use GPT APIs and advanced NLP models to ensure the model cleans out any information that can indicate such data. Multi-Platform Support: Our App currently only supports Android platform but we understand that there’s a wide audience that uses Desktops and iPhones. So moving further, we’d like to support a wide variety of platforms. Business Model: With our ambition of taking this project out to the market, we’d need to develop a business model to market, operate and monetize this platform to make it reach its full potential.
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