Cha-Ching | Devpost

Learn about how you're spending your money
Student account balance over time
Account balance predictions using machine learning

Inspiration

As university students, we are constantly stressed about our financial situation. We no longer have our parents over our shoulders telling us not to go out for dinner again, and we often find ourselves overspending. Additionally, we lack the time to fully plan our expenses and manage our finances which would inform us of whether we are on track to avoid debt. This led us to create a tool targeted to students so that they can receive information about their spending habits, income, and their long term predictions for their financial state.

How we built it

We implemented this tool using the TD Da Vinci API to obtain access to virtual customers and simulate the banking experience, and used python to implement machine learning algorithms to predict future expenses and income for students. We also used numerous python libraries in order to generate graphs of the data to allow students to visualize their financial state.

What we learned

We learned a lot about data science, machine learning, and ways to work with big data so that it is fast and easy to access. As well, we learned about UI design and how to display information in a way that will be compelling to users.

Challenges

One of the challenges we faced was determining how the project was going to make predictions. Most of our team did not have previous experience with machine learning so we researched, communicate with mentors about different ways we could go about this. We considered neural networks as well as different forms of machine learning and ultimately made a decision that was most efficient for the project.