AirWallet

Inspiration

This app was developed with the intention of assisting Americans in overcoming the problem of excessive spending and instead turning their regular purchases into significant savings that can be allocated toward a dream vacation. The typical American performs about 70 transactions every month and 840 annually. With our app, we aim to make it easy for them to save small amounts of money that they may not have noticed they were spending. By rounding up their daily transactions, Americans can save hundreds or even thousands of dollars using this app. It's a simple and effective way to overcome overspending and reach travel goals without having to make significant changes to their spending habits.

What it does

This app is designed to help individuals save money for their future travel plans by rounding up their daily transactions to the next dollar. The app reads the user's emails and tracks their transaction emails, rounding up each purchase to the nearest dollar and transferring the difference into a designated savings account. For example, if a user makes a purchase of $3.50, the app will round up the transaction to $4.00 and transfer 50 cents into the savings account. The app also allows users to set savings goals, such as a specific vacation or trip, and track their progress towards that goal. Lastly, users can also view their transaction history and see how much they have saved over time.

How we built it

The front-end was built using HTML/CSS, Figma, and Flask, while the back-end was constructed primarily with Python, using cleaned American airline route data from Kaggle.

Challenges we ran into

The machine learning models were unable to converge due to the enormous number of possible destinations and the insufficient amount of data for each route; also, we found that the time required to find the cheapest itinerary for a customer would be substantially longer than anticipated. Additionally, while being able to successfully manage our time, we prioritized design over implementation. If we had had more time, we might have been able to overcome this challenge as well.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We’re proud of our UI/UX designs. We spent a lot of time meticulously crafting out our UI and UX to make the app very pleasing to the eye and making the experience as intuitive and user friendly as possible. We are also very proud of working exceptionally well together as a team under the given time constraints. We had great time and project management skills as a team. We split up the work between teammates effectively and tried to help each other whenever we could.

What we learned

We obtained knowledge of the newest technology and tools needed to construct the app, as well as expertise in problem-solving, creative thinking, and cooperation. We had the chance to learn more about the financial sector and consumer needs related to budgeting and saving during the workshops. Additionally, we received insightful criticism on our concept from mentors and professionals in the field, which was highly beneficial for further refining and developing the app. Overall, the hackathon experience gave us the chance to learn and develop in a variety of ways, as well as gain perspective that we will use for the app's development and other future projects.

What's next for AirWallet

AirWallet's next big move is to incorporate direct integration of credit/debit cards and transaction tracking into the app. This will give users the ability to easily add their cards and bank accounts, providing seamless, automated transaction tracking without the need to read transaction emails. We would like to use real transaction .json data and parse through it using Swift. Furthermore, AirWallet is looking to enhance its flight suggestion capabilities through the use of in-app machine learning algorithms, taking the user experience to a new level beyond traditional flight datasets.This integration and use of advanced technology will increase the convenience and accuracy of the app, allowing users to better manage their finances and make informed travel decisions. With the integration of secure storage for sensitive information, users can trust that their financial data will be protected. This move is a testament to AirWallet's commitment to constantly improve and stay at the forefront of innovation in personal finance and travel management. We also have the future goal of converting the app into React-Native app to make it more accessible for end users.