GroundUp Pulse

An AI-powered platform that helps citizens report civic issues and enables authorities to resolve them faster with smart verification, priority scoring, and real-time collaboration.

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Inspiration

In many cities, people face daily civic problems like potholes, garbage, water leaks, and unsafe conditions. However, these issues are often ignored or delayed because of unclear reporting systems, duplicate complaints, and lack of proper communication between citizens and authorities.
We wanted to solve this gap by creating a platform that makes reporting easy, smart, and effective using AI.

What it does

GroundUp Pulse is an AI-powered civic issue reporting platform.
Citizens can report issues using images, descriptions, and location. The system verifies the issue using AI, removes duplicates, assigns a priority score, and sends it to the correct authority.

It also allows real-time communication between citizens and authorities and rewards users for meaningful contributions.

How we built it

We built this project using modern full-stack technologies:

  • Frontend: Next.js, React, Tailwind CSS
  • Backend: Node.js with tRPC
  • Database: Drizzle ORM with Neon
  • Realtime: Socket.io for chat
  • AI: Gemini API for issue verification, duplicate detection, and priority scoring

We designed custom logic for duplicate detection using location + AI similarity and created a smart priority system based on severity and user reports.

Challenges we ran into

  • Detecting duplicate issues accurately using both location and AI
  • Preventing spam while allowing genuine reports
  • Designing a fair and meaningful priority scoring system
  • Making AI responses consistent and structured
  • Managing real-time communication without delays

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Successfully built a full AI-powered civic issue system
  • Implemented smart duplicate detection with real-world logic
  • Created a dynamic priority system that reflects real impact
  • Enabled real-time chat between citizens and authorities
  • Designed a clean and user-friendly interface

What we learned

  • How to integrate AI into real-world problem solving
  • Building scalable and structured full-stack applications
  • Writing effective prompts for reliable AI outputs
  • Designing systems that balance user experience and logic
  • Importance of solving real problems with simple solutions

What's next for GroundUp Pulse

  • Improve AI accuracy for better detection and classification
  • Add real-time notifications and alerts
  • Introduce image hashing for faster duplicate detection
  • Build a mobile app for wider accessibility
  • Add analytics dashboard for authorities
  • Expand to multiple cities and regions

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