Charity Chat

Inspiration

With this project, I wanted to create an easily usable app that would help anyone when choosing charities to donate to. A lot of charities have inspiring impacts and truly contribute to a good cause, but unfortunately, some are also not. And with this in mind, I wanted to create a project that would help people to make better, informed choices when donating. The app includes key information about Canadian charities, as well as more simple features to help anyone when donating. Some key information I sought to include was “demonstrated impact”, “results reporting” and “cents to the cause”, which are important to understanding the transparency and actual impact of each of the charities. As well, I wanted to create the app with a design that was more creative and different from previous charity database apps. I wanted to use a “chat”, because, for myself and others, chats are more fun to use and understandable then attempting to search through seventeen filters for a good charity. Finally, I included Canadian charities in the app, as it’s sometimes more difficult to find charity databases dedicated to Canada. I believe it’s important to donate, not only internationally, but also to important local causes.

What it does

The app is very simple, with just a chat and a database. The chat is a chatbot, to allow for instant responses and quick navigation. It relies on keywords from the user to be able to respond, but the commands are intuitive and very easy to understand. For example, to receive a few important key notes about a charity, the user can just send “info [charity]” and can instantly receive the information. As well, not only can you find donation information, you can also “ask” for general advice on making donations, a feature that many only-database apps don’t have. The database is to offer an alternative for anyone who would rather not type out commands and access the information quickly and easily. In the database, there is a list of all the charities currently available on the app. There are not many at this time, but it can continue to expand as more charities are added. Each charity has key information, which is the same as the chat, as well as buttons to access the charity’s page on charityintelligence.ca and donation pages on the respective websites. Both the chat and the database have the same functionality, essentially, but are geared towards different audiences to their liking.

How we built it

I used android studio and Kotlin to make the app. As well, all the charity information was found from charityintelligence.ca.

Challenges we ran into

I found myself running into a repeated problem with my computer being unable to handle the workload of android studio. It was difficult to complete the app with the constant freezing and crashing of my computer, but I’m very happy that I overcame that challenge. As well, I’m still working on comprehending Kotlin, and navigating android studio in general, so it was still challenging to continue to learn. While I have used the language and the program before, I still am a beginner to coding in general, and thus, it was still a challenge for me.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

While the app has a very simple design and functionalities, I’m proud that I created this, especially in the timeframe. The design was a bit of a struggle to do, and I have not worked too much with Kotlin, so I am very happy about completing it :) I am also proud of what I was able to learn in this project, which was a lot, not only about creating projects, but also about charities and more real-world skills.

What we learned

Even before I created the app, while I was considering what to make for the app, I found myself learning more about the functionalities of android studio, and Kotlin. The things I learned were very interesting, but ultimately, I settled on the current design for the app. However, I have learned far more about the program through this project. As well, in general, I have learned more about programming and coding. With every new hackathon I participate in, and every new project I submit, I have learned more about my own journey in programming, even if my projects aren’t the most flashy or best. Something that I learned that is not expressly part of the programming of the program was more about charities in Canada. While the charities I chose to add into the database at this time were randomly chosen, I researched a lot more about other charities. A goal of mine is to create positive change in the world, and thus, I believe donating to good charities is crucial, and this project has sparked my interest again in this goal. As well, I have learned more about time management and not procrastinating. With the tight deadline, I needed to work quickly and efficiently to build the project, and overall, I’m glad that I finished. This experience was overall very rewarding, not only in learning about programming, but in other aspects of my life.

What's next for Charity Chat

I hope to add more charities into the app, as there are a lot of Canadian charities. As well, I hope to expand the features of the app to perhaps include more useful tools and features of people, such as a financial calculator, more in depth research about each of the charities, etc. If possible, I would hope to learn about actually turning the chatbot into a real “chat” with an AI, which would rule out any edge cases and errors in the chatbot.

Built With

• android-studio
• kotlin