School of Computer Science and Engineering students Okkar Min, Surabhi Malani, and Yeow Ying Sheng have emerged as Champions in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Build On, ASEAN 2021 (Cognizant – Institute category).
Held from 11 June to 1 Aug 2021, AWS Build On, ASEAN 2021, is a competitive hackathon that challenges the community to create technological initiatives and solutions to address challenges faced by the participating sponsors.Â
The Challenge
The students were tasked to find ways to build a more inclusive society and create a platform to bridge the gap between those who need help and those who can offer help.
The #NTUsg SCSE team came up with Localish, a one-stop hyperlocal platform online to help forge a strong kampung spirit among neighbourhood residents. Residents can make new friends with similar interests, read news, receive updates about upcoming events from their Residents’ Committee, as well as connect those who are sharing or selling items or services.
Localish is different from other community platforms because not only does it focus on building a strong neighbourly spirit, but it also focuses on strengthening the volunteer experience, by including Residents’ Committees (RCs) into the picture. This digital platform helps them digitalise their otherwise manual workflow and acts as a platform for them to reach out to the residents. This platform also gamifies the volunteer experience to build volunteer loyalty and increase retention rates.
Experience
“This was a truly exciting experience for us as we worked to our strengths collaboratively. Through this journey, we deep dived into ways we can use technology to help the society we live in and will continue to apply our innovation in future projects. We are thankful for this opportunity given to us and hope that we can be of some inspiration to aspiring students.”
Watch the team’s promotional video here.
