afresh

A web platform facilitating a seamless integration for ex-convicts into society by equipping them with necessary social and technical skills they have missed out in their time of internment.

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Inspiration

The stigma surrounding ex-offenders are still present despite many initiatives (e.g. Yellow Ribbon) to reintegrate them back to societies. It is difficult for ex-offenders with longer sentences to adjust to the rapid technological advancements and cultural adaptations in this mutating milieu. Without constant guidance, ex-offenders may find it difficult to adapt and connect to their new life after prison. With afresh, a platform developed exclusively for ex-offenders, we hope to target this societal pain point to create a more equitable and productive society. afresh provides ex-offenders with educational resources to bridge technological and cultural gaps whilst estranged from the society (e.g. introductions to gig market and Singpass), as well as professional upskilling opportunities to aid them in seeking better job opportunities. Mentorship opportunities and resume curation service will also be offered for ex-offenders who need more assistance. We hope to be the bridge for ex-offenders to start afresh.

What it does

Afresh's features were designed with a key focus on making the reintegration of ex-convicts as easy as possible, and this is achieved by addressing both social and technical integration issues for ex-convicts and equipping them with the relevant support systems.

Unique Sign-Up Feature When signing up, ex-convicts will have to input their first and last day of internment for the platform to provide smart recommendations for essential life skills using a proprietary algorithm and a database of lifestyle trends over the duration of internment.

Smart Recommendations Using ex convicts' period of internment as a point of reference, these smart recommendations provide lifestyle essentials and courses to educate them on current trends and how to adapt to a world that could be vastly different from what they were familiar to. The smart recommendations initially compare the popularity of certain applications or trends in a database curated from sources such as Google Trends, and following that query for relevant courses available in afresh.

Personalized User Dashboard Users' homepage shows a customized dashboard showcasing their recommended courses, acquired professional certifications, notifications and current in-progress tasks for easy tracking and identification of essential tasks or courses.

Course Discover Page Users can discover both professional and general-purpose courses here to aid them with their upskilling process. By default, recommended courses will show up first with the option to toggle between professional and social courses alongside a few filters.

Career Support To supplement users' progress in society re-integration, career development features are also available in the form of job recommendations, mentorship programs and resume automation tools. These features form a holistic solution to tackle a lack of direction in career development, effectively aiding users in their transition into the workforce.

How we built it

We primarily split the product development into a wireframing and prototyping phase, developed using Figma and Vue.js respectively. Before wireframing, there was a brainstorming session on product specifications to effectively address ex-convicts' pain points. The wireframe was then constructed as a web app with modern UI/UX design practices such as usage of dashboards. Following that, the wireframe was converted into working code using Vue.js.

Challenges we ran into

A great deal of effort was put into identifying a key yet under-tackled problem, conceptualising the functionalities for the application, coming up with the user interface and finally implementing the code in 24 hours. With limited time, wise management of time and open and clear communication became very crucial as everyone sought to accomplish a different aspect of web development each, from business model development and UI/UX design to front and back end code.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're happy to not only have developed a web application with features that address the problem statement, but to be able to ideate a solution that addresses a key pain point within a marginalised group of people in Singapore.

What we learned

Not only did we manage to learn to thrive under pressure and hone our technical skills, we were also able to come together closer as a team and improved on our interpersonal skills when it comes to communicating. Furthermore, the topic of ex-offenders, which our application seeks to target, was a hitherto unbroached area for most of us, and having conducted research on this marginalised group of people, we realised that our justice system can often times be more punitive than rehabilitative. With Lifehack 2022, we managed to consider an area that was completely stranger to us and we hope that in the future, we can continue to muse about how to better reconnect and reintegrate ex-offenders with the society.

What's next for afresh

We have developed the following roadmap for Afresh:

Q3 2022 - Q1 2023, Phase 1: Launch of Platform and Onboarding of Users We will initially roll out Afresh via partnerships with Yellow Ribbon and other social service agencies to onboard ex-convicts onto Afresh as part of initiatives to reintegrate ex-convicts back to society. During this phase, the smart recommendation algorithm will be further refined due to the influx of user data as a result of user onboarding.

Q2 2023 - Q4 2023, Phase 2: Partnerships for greater outreach and effectiveness Once Afresh has gotten traction, we will be focusing on partnerships with MNCs or SMEs for a broader selection of mentors and thus greater coverage of industries and users, alongside an increase in the variety of both social and technical courses available to users. Furthermore, we will be looking for partnerships with translation agencies or freelancers for multi-language support in the coming months. As a result, these partnership efforts will serve as a solid foundation for Afresh to refine even further.

Q1 2024 onwards, Phase 3: Continued partnership efforts and postcare efforts This phase is mainly focused on continuity given that the previous two phases have developed a stable foundation. Further onboarding of mentors into Afresh and user postcare efforts will be the main priority moving forward. An example of postcare efforts will be periodic surveys and checkup sessions on users to ensure the platform is continually meeting their needs.

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