Movements.IO | Devpost

Inspiration

Growing up in the U.S., I always feel the world as peaceful and calm. But recently, we see a lot of news full of violence and conflicts. So I decided: I wanted to see the world for what it is. Last winter, I travelled all the way to Hong Kong, amidst protests and covid-19. I saw protests and rallies and police brutality. I was personally attached to the city, and wanted to find out more about its democratic struggle. But I ran into the rabbithole of wikipedia articles, government documents. It was difficult for foreigners like me to understand, as I lack the historical context. In fact, the whole thing is difficult for locals to fully grasp. I decided to develop a timeline platform that allows organizations to quickly provide this context, to raise awareness, and to bond movements together.

What it does

It displays events and periods that are important to a movement on a clear timeline, providing readers a clear way to understand a social movement or a social issue.

Most importantly, it is a platform that allows any organization with a goal or a movement to raise awareness, share strategies, and educate the public.

How I built it

I developed a web interface with HTML5, CSS3, and javascript. For the content of the HK movement, I used Wordpress. This way, anyone with minimal CS experience can develop this tool. I had to tweak a lot on the wordpress theme development. The timeline interface was actually quite hard to be made smooth and natural. Lots of CSS :)

Challenges I ran into

Working alone because I was not able to find partners. Developing the whole thing in such short amount of time. Creating the video for this hackathon (Hacktech) was actually half the work! Half way I realized it is very hard to record screen on MacOS. My Macbook had weird codec issues and boi I wasted my time coding all those full animation of my timeline. Video editing is really hard haha.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

I did it! I started with a vision. I wanted to help out with the situation. And I acted based on that vision. I believe technology should always be for a goal, a vision, a social good. Instead of hacking for the hell of it, let's hack so we can make the world a better place :)