## Inspiration

“**Social media sucks these days.**” — These were the first few words we heard from one of the speakers at the opening ceremony, and they struck a chord with us.

I’ve never genuinely felt good while being on my phone, and like many others I started viewing social media as nothing more than a source of distraction from my real life and the things I really cared about.

In December 2019, I deleted my accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and WhatsApp.

For the first few months — I honestly felt great. I got work done, focused on my small but valuable social circle, and didn’t spend hours on my phone.

But one year into my social media detox, I realized that **something substantial was still missing.** I had personal goals, routines, and daily checklists of what I did and what I needed to do — but I wasn’t talking about them. By not having social media I bypassed superficial and addictive content, but I was also entirely disconnected from my network of friends and acquaintances. Almost no one knew what I was up to, and I didn’t know what anyone was up to either. A part of me longed for a level of social interaction more sophisticated than Gmail, but I didn’t want to go back to the forms of social media I had escaped from.

One of the key aspects of being human is **personal growth and development** — having a set of values and living them out consistently. Especially in the age of excess content and the disorder of its partly-consumed debris, more people are craving a sense of **routine, orientation, and purpose** in their lives. But it’s undeniable that **humans are social animals** — we also crave **social interaction, entertainment, and being up-to-date with new trends.**

Our team’s problem with current social media is its attention-based reward system. Most platforms reward users based on numeric values of attention, through measures such as likes, comments and followers. Because of this reward system, people are inclined to create more appealing, artificial, and addictive content. This has led to some of the things we hate about social media today — **addictive and superficial content, and the scarcity of genuine interactions with people in the network.**

This leads to a **backward-looking user-experience** in social media. The person in the 1080x1080 square post is an ephemeral and limited representation of who the person really is. Once the ‘post’ button has been pressed, the post immediately becomes an invitation for users to trap themselves in the past — to feel dopamine boosts from likes and comments that have been designed to make them addicted to the platform and waste more time, ultimately **distorting users’ perception of themselves, and discouraging their personal growth outside of social media.**

In essence — We define the question of reinventing social media as the following:

*“How can social media align personal growth and development with meaningful content and genuine interaction among users?”*

**Our answer is High Resolution — a social media platform that orients people’s lives toward an overarching purpose and connects them with liked-minded, goal-oriented people.**

The platform seeks to do the following:

**1. Motivate users to visualize and consistently achieve healthy resolutions for personal growth**

**2. Promote genuine social interaction through the pursuit of shared interests and values**

**3. Allow users to see themselves and others for who they really are and want to be, through natural, progress-inspired content**

## What it does

The following are the functionalities of High Resolution (so far!):

After Log in or Sign Up:

**1. Create Resolution**

* Name your resolution, whether it be Learning Advanced Korean, or Spending More Time with Family.
* Set an end date to the resolution — i.e. December 31, 2022
* Set intervals that you want to commit to this goal for (Daily / Weekly / Monthly)

**2. Profile Page**

* Ongoing Resolutions
	+ Ongoing resolutions and level of progress
	+ Clicking on a resolution opens up the timeline of that resolution, containing all relevant posts and intervals
	+ Option to create a new resolution, or ‘Discover’ resolutions
* ‘Discover’ Page
	+ Explore other users’ resolutions, that you may be interested in
	+ Clicking on a resolution opens up the timeline of that resolution, allowing you to view the user’s past posts and progress for that particular resolution and be inspired and motivated!
	+ Clicking on a user takes you to that person’s profile
* Past Resolutions
	+ Past resolutions and level of completion
	+ Resolutions can either be fully completed or partly completed
	+ Clicking on a past resolution opens up the timeline of that resolution, containing all relevant posts and intervals

**3. Search Bar**

* Search for and navigate to other users’ profiles!

**4. Sentiment Analysis based on IBM Watson to warn against highly negative or destructive content**

* Two functions for sentiment analysis textual data on platform:
* One function to analyze the overall positivity/negativity of the text
* Another function to analyze the user of the amount of joy, sadness, anger and disgust
* When the user tries to create a resolution that seems to be triggered by negativity, sadness, fear or anger, we show them a gentle alert that this may not be best for them, and ask if they would like to receive some support.
* In the future, we can further implement this feature to do the same for comments on posts.
* This particular functionality has been demo'ed in the video, during the new resolution creation.
* **There are two purposes for this functionality**:
* a) We want all our members to feel that they are in a safe space, and while they are free to express themselves freely, we also want to make sure that their verbal actions do not pose a threat to themselves or to others.
* b) Current social media has shown to be a propagator of hate speech leading to violent attacks in real life. One prime example are the Easter Attacks that took place in Sri Lanka exactly a year ago: <https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-48022530>
* If social media had a mechanism to prevent such speech from being rampant, the possibility of such incidents occurring could have been reduced.
* Our aim is not to police speech, but rather to make people more aware of the impact of their words, and in doing so also try to provide resources or guidance to help people with emotional stress that they might be feeling on a day-to-day basis.
* We believe that education at the grassroots level through social media will have an impact on elevating the overall wellbeing of society.

## How we built it

Our tech stack primarily consisted of React (with Material UI), Firebase and IBM Watson APIs. For the purpose of this project, we opted to use the full functionality of Firebase to handle the vast majority of functionality that would typically be done on a classic backend service built with NodeJS, etc. We also used Figma to prototype the platform, while IBM Watson was used for its Natural Language toolkits, in order to evaluate sentiment and emotion.

## Challenges we ran into

A bulk of the challenges we encountered had to do with React Hooks. A lot of us were only familiar with an older version of React that opted for class components instead of functional components, so getting used to Hooks took a bit of time.

Another issue that arose was pulling data from our Firebase datastore. Again, this was a result of lack of experience with serverless architecture, but we were able to pull through in the end.

## Accomplishments that we're proud of

We’re really happy that we were able to implement most of the functionality that we set out to when we first envisioned this idea. We admit that we might have bit a lot more than we could chew as we set out to recreate an entire social platform in a short amount of time, but we believe that the proof of concept is demonstrated through our demo

## What we learned

Through research and long contemplation on social media, we learned a lot about the shortcomings of modern social media platforms, for instance how they facilitate unhealthy addictive mechanisms that limit personal growth and genuine social connection, as well as how they have failed in various cases of social tragedies and hate speech. With that in mind, we set out to build a platform that could be on the forefront of a new form of social media.

From a technical standpoint, we learned a ton about how Firebase works, and we were quite amazed at how well we were able to work with it without a traditional backend.

## What's next for High Resolution

One of the first things that we’d like to implement next, is the ‘Group Resolution’ functionality. As of now, users browse through the platform, find and connect with liked-minded people pursuing similarly-themed interests. We think it would be interesting to allow users to create and pursue group resolutions with other users, to form more closely-knitted and supportive communities with people who are actively communicating and working towards achieving the same resolution.

We would also like to develop a sophisticated algorithm to tailor the users’ ‘Discover’ page, so that the shown content is relevant to their past resolutions. For instance, if the user has completed goals such as ‘Wake Up at 5:00AM’, and ‘Eat breakfast everyday’, we would recommend resolutions like ‘Morning jog’ on the discover page. By recommending content and resolutions based on past successful resolutions, we would motivate users to move onto the next step. In the case that a certain resolution was recommended because a user failed to complete a past resolution, we would be able to motivate them to pursue similar resolutions based on what we think is the direction the user wants to head towards.

We also think that High Resolution could be potentially become a platform for recruiters to spot dedicated and hardworking talent, through the visualization of users’ motivation, consistency, and progress. Recruiters may also be able to user the platform to communicate with users and host online workshops or events .

WIth more classes and educational content transitioning online, we think the platform could serve as a host for online lessons and bootcamps for users interested in various topics such as coding, music, gaming, art, and languages, as we envision our platform being highly compatible with existing online educational platforms such as Udemy, Leetcode, KhanAcademy, Duolingo, etc.

The overarching theme of High Resolution is **motivation, consistency, and growth.** We believe that having a user base that adheres passionately to these themes will open to new opportunities and both individual and collective growth.
## Inspiration

It took us a while to think of an idea for this project- after a long day of zoom school, we sat down on Friday with very little motivation to do work. As we pushed through this lack of drive our friends in the other room would offer little encouragements to keep us going and we started to realize just how powerful those comments are. For all people working online, and university students in particular, the struggle to balance life on and off the screen is difficult. We often find ourselves forgetting to do daily tasks like drink enough water or even just take a small break, and, when we do, there is very often negativity towards the idea of rest. This is where You're Doing Great comes in.

## What it does

Our web application is focused on helping students and online workers alike stay motivated throughout the day while making the time and space to care for their physical and mental health. Users are able to select different kinds of activities that they want to be reminded about (e.g. drinking water, eating food, movement, etc.) and they can also input messages that they find personally motivational. Then, throughout the day (at their own predetermined intervals) they will receive random positive messages, either through text or call, that will inspire and encourage. There is also an additional feature where users can send messages to friends so that they can share warmth and support because we are all going through it together. Lastly, we understand that sometimes positivity and understanding aren't enough for what someone is going through and so we have a list of further resources available on our site.

## How we built it

We built it using:

* AWS
	+ DynamoDB
	+ Lambda
	+ Cognito
	+ APIGateway
	+ Amplify
* React
	+ Redux
	+ React-Dom
	+ MaterialUI
* serverless
* Twilio
* Domain.com
* Netlify

## Challenges we ran into

Centring divs should not be so difficult :(
Transferring the name servers from domain.com to Netlify
Serverless deploying with dependencies

## Accomplishments that we're proud of

Our logo!
It works :)

## What we learned

We learned how to host a domain and we improved our front-end html/css skills

## What's next for You're Doing Great

We could always implement more reminder features and we could refine our friends feature so that people can only include selected individuals. Additionally, we could add a chatbot functionality so that users could do a little check in when they get a message.
## Inspiration🎓

To make the context clear, we are three students who believe that meaningful work facilitates self-content, inspiration and projects that either help others or ourselves. Since we joined university(we are all first-years), we did not find what we did so meaningful anymore. We had great expectations since we were all enrolled in a top 100 university. Still, we were surprised to see how little they cared about our creativity, ideas, and overall potential. Things were too theoretical; some answers in different disciplines, which turned out to be correct, **were dismissed because they were not based on ”the old ways”**.

**Also, there was no easy way to cooperate with other disciplines.** Unless you go out partying, and by some luck, you are not an introvert, there is no easy way to meet someone. For example, maybe as a business student, you cannot really meet someone from computer science or design so easily. Unless you go out of your way, there is no simple way to meet like-minded people that could help you create something meaningful.

Obviously, there are apps such as Instagram, Facebook, Linkedin, Reddit and fiver. Though, the way they are created and marketed, there is not much chance you find what you need. Almost no one answers messages from strangers on Instagram or Facebook. On LinkedIn, people are there for internships and money, pretending to be some fancy intellectual. Reddit is not really used by that many students, not as a way to meet students anyways, and if you need a specialist on fiver for anything unless you are rich, good luck with paying him.

We want to create a safe place for us, young individuals, who want something more than base our happiness on exam grades, work for a corporation for our entire life after 3-5 years of grinding for good marks, for subjects that don’t necessarily help you at anything or where we can meet students from all the disciplines, not only our own.

**Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid”-actually not by Albert Einstein.**

We strongly advise people to pursue a university; we are not against it, though we advise not to base your life upon it; it’s great as a safety net and learning place. We don’t like the old premise of you will do nothing with your life unless you finish your degree we want to truly bring the youth to their true potential, not inhibit it. Each year, the crisis of meaning expands, especially in young individuals. If not give rebirth to it, we would love to contribute to providing students with another chance to create, develop and meet other great colleagues

## What it does🔧

**StudHub** is an app with different features that facilitate flow in terms of building projects, meeting open-minded individuals and discussing with and helping fellow students.

**The main features** will be the main page, creating a post(with a specific template) and a search bar. The main page will consist of projects posted based on a template that doesn’t reveal too much, though enough to make people get the idea. For example, you are a computer science student with a great app idea. You are a great back-end developer though you know nothing in UI/UX design; respectively, you are pretty introverted and don’t know how to actually create a brand out of it as well. By posting your idea succinctly and selecting the skills you need for your projects, people with those specific skills, if they like your idea, can send you a request to get in touch with you. On the other hand, you can also search for these people in the search bar.

As stated above, if you are a creative individual, you can post your ideas and find the people you need for projects. On the other hand, if you want to do something meaningful with your free time but you are sick of volunteering work that just gives you a diploma and a line in your cv, this is a place for you too!

**Other Features** consist of:

1. “Reddit-style” thread (we are still developing/designing our own style for this), where you can ask questions, discuss different topics, and search for answers to whatever questions you have. It can be mostly based around student problems, passions, anything really! We want to create a safe space for meeting other students too!
2. Messages
3. Notifications
4. Profile (where you can select your skills and write about yourself; we want the real you! We’ll try to make sure no prospective employer can judge you based on that!
5. Learning environment; in the future, here, we will create courses on practical topics that are important but not so often taught in university. (public speaking, leadership, etc.)

We initially viewed it as a website. We have started development on Firebase. Though during the hackathon we realized that our main target demographic(Students and young individuals) uses mostly their phones, which meant an app would be significantly better and preferred. Then we started working on Flutter.

## How we built it👨‍🎨

Using the Flutter framework, we built a cross-platform app (Android/IOS/Web). For the backend, we used Firebase as a provider, its Authentication module, and also Firebase Firestore for our NoSQL database.

## Challenges we ran into⚖️

The post feature is the greatest challenge, which is still in discussion. We want to build a template and guideline as straightforward as possible that does not disclose too many of the ideas that someone will just take it. We are thinking about how to implement NDAs when you get it to discuss with interested people, but right now, the focus is to create a working MVP.

The overall concept is pretty hard to explain without looking like we are against universities. We genuinely find them very important to one's individual development. We are actively working to find a way to tell our story and create a brand that supports creativity and the individual while not sounding too much against the traditional model.

Also, due to the many features we want to add, it is a constant struggle to make everything as efficient, aesthetic and easy as possible. We are pretty much in an age of attention deficit, so we want to build something neat and user-friendly.

## Accomplishments that we're proud of🧐

We are genuinely surprised by the fact that our app constantly worked almost without any problems throughout the whole 36h.

We have never fought on any subject; we constantly built on each other's ideas and realized that we work lovely as a team. Any problems we had were discussed calmly and found a middle way.

## What we learned 👩‍🏫

A new programming language we had never worked with Dart before until the start of the Hackathon!
A new framework, it was our first time on Flutter before either!

How to listen to each other more without interrupting. And most importantly, working without sleep for 36 hours and a lot of caffeine! :D

## What's next for StudHub🚀

We have discussed this thoroughly, and after the Hackathon, we need to find an affordable UX/UI designer (ironically enough, our app would have been so helpful for this) to either join our project or at least build a starting page where we can have a subscription list, where we could make the "proof of concept" for our idea.

Eventually, we will send emails with updates on the project. During this Hackathon, we realized how in love we are with this idea, and we want to continue building on it and eventually launching it.

For now, our focus will be to design it as efficient, aesthetic and user-friendly and make it functional. We want to go through what we built during the Hackathon to analyze what we did out of speed and what we want to keep. There are many things that need more thought.

We also want to add "Meet your Mentor"! In an even further future, we want to implement a feature where our dear users can talk with experienced people from a diverse array of subjects, ask for advice on a making project, open a business, start research, etc.

We hope that our concept will catch on and become a big trend, eventually leading to many young individuals with great potential to meet each other and build beautiful things! I personally feel lucky to have met the people I have worked within this Hackathon because they became some of my best friends that I spend much time with. We hope to take the luck element out and make it easier for people to meet such beautiful people, that not only they will create cool projects and businesses, but they will become maybe friends for life.

Do not forget, creating stuff is cool but meeting great people is sometimes even cooler!