Inspiration
Going into this competition we wanted to create a financial application that would provide some new features that would benefit society. We also wished to incorporate the Amazon Echo into our program, although we had no previous experience with it, but we wished to learn something new.
What it does
Our program uses Amazon's Alexa to create a simulation of a bank system, in which a user can view his/her balance, and send money to other accounts, after passing a identification process (password, and bank account number).
How we built it
We created a mock bank database through Amazon Web Service which stored data on the S3 storage service. We then programmed the lambda function of Alexa Echo to access the database and edit and receive data from it.
Challenges we ran into
Initially, when we were creating the banking application we wished to use Capital One API, unfortunately both the Money Movement and Hackathon APIs were incomplete. We then decided to create our own mock bank system. After some research we decided to use the dynamoDB database for storing 'customers' data, because the database focuses on text. However we had many issues related to storage, mainly due to a recent update that meant there was a lack of current documentation of the resource, in python. After switching over to the S3 storage system, however, we progressed rapidly.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We're proud of integrating several Amazon Web Services together (lambda, and S3) in a simple method for users. We're also proud that our program has serious real world value.
What we learned
We learned a great deal about AWS, because we had no experience with Amazon Web services, databases or programming for the Alexa Echo prior to this competition.
What's next for Vocal Banking
We feel that the next steps for our Vocal Banking would be integrating it with an existing bank's financial network, and increasing the security measures for clients.
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