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GoldStack: Empowering Financial Literacy Through Technology

Inspiration

We began brainstorming ideas with a shared vision inspired by Mansa Musa's philosophy: "Education is the greatest wealth a man can possess." The realization that financial education is often an inaccessible resource for many, especially minority groups in America, sparked our determination to make a change. Thus, GoldStack was conceived as our beacon of hope and empowerment.

We started off by brainstorming ideas, and we really wanted to incorporate Mansa Musa, since we thought his quote - “Education is the greatest wealth a man can possess” - was really cool. With this, we decided to live up to this quote by making a project that provided financial education. Especially since the U.S currently suffers high financial literacy rates among minority groups. This is basically how we ended up conceptualizing GoldStack.

What We Learned

The process of creating GoldStack was as much about learning as it was about building. Diving deep into the world of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and financial education, we uncovered startling statistics that fueled our mission. A 2016 TIAA institute survey highlighting that only a fraction of African Americans and Hispanic adults could pass basic financial literacy assessments underscored the urgency of our project. Furthermore, discovering the lack of accessible financial tools for the visually impaired opened our eyes to the broader spectrum of inclusivity in financial education.

We had to learn a lot in order to implement GoldStack the way we had envisioned it. Initially starting off with a lot of research in Artificial Intelligence and Financial education. Covering this first, helped us collect more statistics about the financial illiteracy problem we want to address. Some stats came from TIAA and it showed that only a fraction of African Americans and Hispanics were able to pass a financial literacy test. Something about the issues that the team had not known beforehand. Further research showed that the lack of accessible financial tools exacerbated the issue.

How We Built GoldStack

Our solution, GoldStack, is a testament to the power of technology and teamwork. Leveraging cutting-edge technologies, we designed a web application that serves as a gateway to financial literacy. Here's a breakdown of our building process:

GoldStack is meant to be a cumulation of current technological prowess and collaboration, and we really leaned into trying to maximize and leverage the best technologies for our product. One of us remarked that we wanted to make the ultimate gateway to financial literacy. Below we have a breakdown of our development process.

Conceptualization: Identifying the core issue and envisioning a solution that could bridge the gap in financial literacy through an engaging, accessible platform.

Conceptualization: We identified the core issue and envisioned the ideal solution to bridge the gap between underserved communities and financial literacy.

Technology Stack:
- AI Coach: Integration with the ChatGPT API for conversational AI.
- Avatar Creation: Utilizing D-iD’s API for generating AI avatars with text-to-speech capabilities, ensuring our solution is inclusive for the visually impaired.
- Web Development: Employing a robust combination of a GoDaddy domain, Vercel template, and Cloudflare for secure, optimal performance.

Technology Stack: We decided to use the following technologies during the development of our product. AI Coach: ChatGPT API - used for generating conversational AI Avatar Creation: D-iD;a API - used for generating AI avatars with text to speech Web Development: We used a combo of GoDaddy for domain, Vercel as a template, and Cloudflare for secure optimization.

Design and Development: Meticulously crafting a user-friendly interface that encourages interaction and learning through a personal connection with an AI financial coach.

Design and Development: Creating a user-friendly interface that encourages AI interaction and learning.

Testing and Feedback: Conducting rigorous testing phases and iterating based on feedback to refine our application and enhance user experience.

Testing and Feedback: Actively troubleshooting and testing how our product worked and how we could make it better.

Challenges Faced

Embarking on this project was not without its hurdles. The ambitious scope of integrating advanced AI within a user-friendly platform for financial education posed significant technical challenges. Ensuring accessibility for the visually impaired required innovative approaches and meticulous attention to detail. Time constraints of the hackathon further pressured us to prioritize features and streamline our development process. Yet, each challenge served as a learning opportunity, pushing us to think creatively and work efficiently as a team.

This project wasn’t easy to complete, and our team faced a variety of obstacles. We had a very ambitious scope for what we wanted to do, especially when incorporating AI into a user-friendly interface. We also had to make sure we were still implementing our accessibility feature, which required intensive study on how one of the APIs we were using allowed us to use it. It wouldn’t be a hackathon without saying, but the time constraint limited what we were capable of creating and pressured us into moving along our development process, rather than smoothing out the edges.

Conclusion

In conclusion, GoldStack represents more than just a financial solution; it embodies our commitment to leveraging technology for social good. Through this project, we've learned invaluable lessons in AI, web development, and the critical importance of financial literacy. Despite the challenges, our journey reaffirmed the belief that education, particularly financial education, is a fundamental right that should be accessible to all. As we look to the future, we are excited about the potential of GoldStack to empower individuals across all communities to study, save, and stack their way to financial success.

*Study. Save. Stack.

In the end, GoldStack turned out to be a very meaningful project. Personally, believing that it embodies our commitment to leveraging technology for societal good. We also gained a great amount of experience using AI, web development, while also reinforcing our beliefs about the importance of financial literacy. We are excited to see a future where developers like ourselves are able to create fully-fledged products like we have had the opportunity to do during this Hackathon.

GoldStack: Empowering every individual, regardless of their background, on their financial journey with cutting-edge technology.