KYLE PAUL: Hey there.
Next up, we have the team from Helppier, an Android
app that creates volunteering opportunities
in local neighborhoods.
The app was designed on Figma and developed
using React Native and Cloud Run by James, Janice, Mohamed,
and Oluwateleayo from the University of Toronto
in Canada.
Enjoy.
OLUWATELEAYO OYEKUNLE: Our project
Helppier is a mobile app that encourages
neighbors helping neighbors to identify volunteering.
2020 was a challenging year for everybody,
especially for volunteering.
People are feeling more isolated and in need of help,
but may not have anybody in their neighborhood to turn to.
Our goal is to encourage a new social norm
of volunteering in people's daily routines
in their local neighborhood.
Research identified that while over 90% of us
want to volunteer, only a quarter of us actually do.
JAMES LEE: On Helppier login screen, first time the user
can sign in from an account, which
takes them through a streamlined and engaging onboarding
process.
With Helppier, instead of volunteering
from organizations, people can sign up
to volunteer to help people in their local neighborhood
with flexible time commitments.
We also gamify volunteering and built in our own cryptocurrency
called karma coins, which incentivize volunteering
among social circles.
JANICE CHEUNG: On the home screen,
users can begin their volunteer task search.
By clicking Search, the app guides the users through a step
by step process of finding tasks suited to them based
on time, commitment, date, and type of tasks.
The user can also see all of the closest tasks based
on their criteria, and switch between map and list view.
The user can also see details about each task,
such as distance away, time required,
and also karma coins earned.
Here, the user is going to choose to help
his neighbor pick up groceries.
On the Task page, the user can see additional details
and also learn more about who they're helping
before choosing to volunteer.
Users can immediately begin their task
after clicking Volunteer, and confirm once their task is also
complete.
And since trust and community building
is important on Helppier, user feedback
is encouraged after every task.
MOHAMED AMINE BELABBES: If you're
a user that wants to request for help,
you can request a volunteer.
The app takes you through a similar step
by step process, where the user can fill out
the details of their request based on location,
and preview the post before submitting it
to the volunteer board.
The Rewards section allows users to redeem your karma coins
and includes a friend leaderboard
to incentivize and encourage volunteering in social circles.
Here, the user can also redeem the karma coins, our app
cryptocurrency, and can select either a gift card
or donate to charity.
The system incentivizes volunteering,
and also establishes partnerships
with local organizations, allowing local businesses
to get more visibility within their neighborhood.
Helppier at its core is about neighbors helping neighbors,
and with this platform, we can help build community.
ERICA HANSON: Hi.
Hi again, Florina.
Hi, team Helppier.
It's good to see all of you.
FLORINA MUNTENESCU: Hi.
ERICA HANSON: Hi.
Awesome.
So Florina, I know that you have a couple of questions
for this team as well, and maybe you
can introduce yourself again.
I'll pass it to you.
FLORINA MUNTENESCU: [INAUDIBLE] Sure, thank you.
So I'm Florina Muntenescu.
I'm an Android Developer Relations engineer.
So I really enjoyed checking out your project
and learning more about how you see volunteering.
So more specifically, one thing I really liked
is that you're able to give an extra financial incentive
for folks to volunteer.
And not only that, but because like this,
you're supporting local communities, such a good idea.
But I have questions.
So the first question I have is, are there any other competitors
or similar apps out there, and what
do you think is the main advantage of your app compared
to theirs?
JANICE CHEUNG: That's a great question.
So in Canada, there are some apps
that tailor to specific causes like animal rescues
or volunteering for high school students,
but there's actually no comprehensive network that
really encompasses all the different volunteering
organizations or individuals that need help.
And this also applies internationally.
So myself and James were in Canada, Amine is in Scotland,
and Tele's in Nigeria.
So we've already seen this type of need
for this kind of platform around the world to really facilitate
connection and volunteering.
And especially in the past year with COVID,
it's really illuminated the desire for people
to help others in their local neighborhood.
Right now, many nonprofit organizations don't actually
have the funding or even the infrastructure
to support their own volunteer recruitment program,
so organizations often have to resort
to very traditional methods of recruitment,
like posters or WhatsApp groups to recruit people.
And so the advantage that Helppier
offers as a platform is that it really democratizes
outreach and enables smaller organizations
and individuals to seek help from volunteers
in their local neighborhood.
Another benefit is that Helppier really
incentivizes social circles to volunteer, too,
since we've built in our own cryptocurrency reward
system, which has a leaderboard to keep track of volunteering
and also sustain interest for volunteers after they've
joined as well.
So ultimately, Helppier removes the pain point
of trying to find volunteers, and also allows
people to instead focus on what's really important, which
is making a real difference in their communities.
And that's the main advantage we see for the Helppier platform.
FLORINA MUNTENESCU: Cool, thank you.
Thank you for the answer.
The second question is a little bit more technical.
So I would love to hear what was your biggest challenge when
implementing the Android app?
And of course, like, how did you overcome that challenge?
MOHAMED AMINE BELABBES: So we faced a lot of challenges,
actually, but the latest one was related
to our facial recognition system.
In our last development iteration,
when we talked to our mentor, we realized
that we needed to improve our security to ensure
the safety of our users.
So what we decided to do is to add a facial recognition
system.
And what we wanted to do as well is to have some strong privacy
component, so we wanted to have some on-device machine learning
model that would allow us to get that facial recognition
working.
I'll pass it on to James that will tell you more about how
we have it going right now.
JAMES LEE: Oh yeah, but when we were trying
to do the facial recognition, there
were a lot of libraries available
for facial recognition, but it had
some issues with compatibility and efficiency.
So we kind of had to build our own backend REST API.
We utilize facial recognition endpoints
when a volunteer wants to sign up for a job or volunteering,
or register an account.
It takes the Base64 image data, which is sent to the backend.
And that Base64 data, that converts to the embedding,
validates the user recognition, and sends the output back
to the application.
And yeah, that's-- back to you, Amine.
ERICA HANSON: That's awesome.
Yeah, thank you.
Thanks so much for sharing more about your project.
We do have a question from the audience,
so I'm going to pull that in right now.
So, "are there any procedures to verify users?
Background checks are important in such cases, I believe."
OLUWATELEAYO OYEKUNLE: Yes.
This goes back to security.
It's one of the main things we talked about with our mentor,
about how to verify who is actually using the app.
So that's where we go back to our facial recognition system.
First thing is we want to make sure
that the person that signed up is the person that is actually
doing the task.
And then one thing we're trying to do is keep it localized.
The idea is we are not really trying
to make you drive two, three hours to some beach cleanup.
We want you to be in your area and then-- so to that,
we're using something of a referral system
for people to get onto this app, kind of like Clubhouse.
So when organizations come and when people come,
they invite people they people they
know, people they can trust, and that way we
can build more of a strong sense of community, especially
in our neighborhoods.
ERICA HANSON: That's great.
Awesome.
I would love to use this.
I always say I want to volunteer,
and if there's something to make it a bit easier or one-off,
that would be great.
So thank you so much for thinking about this,
taking this on.
We really enjoyed this project, so thank you all.
FLORINA MUNTENESCU: Thanks.
OLUWATELEAYO OYEKUNLE: Thank you.
ERICA HANSON: Bye, everyone.
JANICE CHEUNG: Thank you.