Climate Community

Uniting the community through crowd sourced map events, to combat our climate crisis.

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Inspiration

We were inspired by different software products that bring people and businesses together to create a starting point for initiatives of greater impact (ex. Meetups, TooGood2Go, Gas Buddies).

However, there is a lack of this centralized platform, when it comes to the environment. For example, where can we go for organized trash cleaning in the neighbourhood, where can we go to dispose of batteries and electronic waste, and where can we go if we're looking to do something more for the environment over the weekend.

The aim of this project is to create a centralized platform, available in various cities, for people to organize, as well as participate in one-time and ongoing environment programs.

What it does

Our Climate Community app has the goal of bringing together environmentally conscious organizers and participants, to join in on events and initiatives that can help the environment. For example, this might be a weekend trash collection event, that one person or organization organizes, whereby then Climate Community app users can be alerted and sign up to participate in.

As well, long running events such as battery and electronics waste collection facilities can also be pinned on the map, so that users can have one centralized place to search for and participate in environmentally conscious initiatives and events.

How we built it

Our Climate Community prototype (still a work in progress with upcoming features), was built using vanilla JS and TS, google maps API, as well as library bundling and JS browser support using Webpack and Babel respectively.

Challenges we ran into

The goal of this challenge was also to practice vanilla JS, over React (a framework our team members used far more often than vanillaJS), as well as try out Google APIs for the first time.

Challenges included figuring out how things connected using VanillaJS with HTML and CSS, as well as how to utilize Google Maps API (including available methods, and properties) to achieve the desired results.

We also ran out of time persisting the data longer term into a database, which is something we'll be looking to improve on moving forwards.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're proud of getting a working prototype ready by the end of this hackathon, and are looking forwards to further iterations (including design revamp, data persistence using a cloud database, and further app features)

What we learned

We learned a lot about environmental problems, and available solutions during this Hackathon, as well as different technologies (vanillaJS, and Google maps API).

What's next for Climate Community

Moving forwards, Climate Community is looking forwards to a design revamp, and adding a database layer for data persistence. We will also be doing some user market research in our local community, to see what features will be most desirable to our local environment groups, and if any environment groups would be willing to adopt this app, to assist in its operations.

Our Team

Lauren Zhen - Presently a UX Design & Human-Centred Data Science Master's student at the University of Toronto. Lauren has experience in sustainable energy, energy policy, business finance, as well as product and UX design.

Joanna Liu - Presently a Software Developer at Hootsuite. Joanna has experience in software, graphic design, as well as lab research as a previous chemical engineering student.

David Mou - Presently a Program Manager for the Government of Canada. This is David's second hackathon. David has experience in project management, software development and finance.

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