The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the global food industry as governments shut down restaurants and bars to slow down the spread of the virus. Introducing Eatsa, a social media food influencer app aimed to support businesses owned by Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC). Portion of the proceeds from each commission that an individual makes is allocated towards a charity of choice by the restaurateur from a preselected, BIPOC-supportive non-profit organization list vetted by Eatsa.
-
The user can upload recent food photos onto their feed, tagging the restaurants that work with Eatsa or redirect them to their feed where it conveniently enables the ‘visitor’ to purchase food directly from the restaurant for pick up.
-
The user can generate a personal link to their personal feed OR create a Facebook Business Page (if they are a restaurant owner). An AI bot will respond to any questions related to their stories on cross messaging platforms, and direct them to the Eatsa app once consented.
-
The visitor from the personalized link can purchase a food item identified on the feed with trusted payment processing platform, Stripe.
-
As soon as a purchase is completed by the ‘visitor’, the Influencer’s earnings gain up to a 5% commission as an incentive for driving business to other merchants.
-
The user can check their position on the platform via a tracking system. The more the number of visitors click on the referral link, the higher the user will advance on the Eatsa Chart.
- Docker (Containerization)
- PHP
- Angular 7
- Laravel
- MySQL
- Redis
- Stripe Payment
The biggest challenge was definitely setting up the docker container with the MySQL database, it is my first time coding in PHP. Through this experience, we were able to definitely learn how to manage dependency errors better. This was also our first time joining a 3 day hackathon, we had to evaluate who’s strongest at a certain skill set and divide tasks accordingly. Surprisingly, communication was done very well, and that carried us.
Putting something together in 36 hours. There is always a sense of accomplishment whether you’ve picked up a new tech stack or work with someone new. These hackathons are a great way to bring your ideas to life outside of your professional work niche. For our team, we are proud of wrapping up our backend service, with a tint of mobile app prototypes.
The takeaway here is definitely learning how we all function as a team. In terms of technical skills, a lot can be said for each person in the team.
We are thinking of stress testing more for this project, or conducting user research. After receiving feedback, we'd like to make incremental progress towards our final deliverable (iOS/Android app + Web App)