The return to normalcy
My experience participating in the MIT COVID 19 Challenge — Beat the Pandemic II.
The return to normalcy is an incredible challenge. There are so many things going on in the world right now. There are so many problems worth solving and seemingly not enough time or resources to do so. What does the future look like? How are people dealing with these events? How are people dealing with wanting to support the Black Lives Matter movement but also wanting to be responsible for maintaining social distancing? These were a few of the thoughts that raced through my mind during the Beat the Pandemic II hackathon. Here’s the story of what I experienced in a short span of 48 hours…
This may be a familiar image. The New York Times visualizing only 1% of the deaths in America during a pandemic. I thought to myself, how could I do my small part in helping this situation?
MIT COVID 19 Challenge — Beat the Pandemic II
Getting started
Almost 2000 individuals from across the globe participated in this hackathon. I was fortunate enough to be part of Track B, focusing on well-being and adapting to the new normal. I collaborated with six other incredible people I had just met. I was primarily responsible for scoping, ideating, and prioritizing the features to create low fidelity mockups. We were an international team of diverse backgrounds, all passionate about helping others adapt to the new normal.
Meet my team!
Sanchit Jhunjhunwala
Mechanical Engineering Student @ IIT Guwahati (India)
Andrea Jimenez
Biomedical Engineer, Management Consultant (Costa Rica)
Prateek Manocha
Electrical Engineering Student @ IIT Guwahati (India)
Shreeneet Rathi
Design Engineer @ IIT Bombay (India)
Nikola Skerl
Math & Global Studies Student @ UT Austin (USA)
Shannon Snaden
Business Analyst, MBA, CRM (Canada)
Timmy Chiu
Master of Human-Computer Interaction Candidate @ CMU (USA)
The Problem
We acknowledged that the pandemic affected us; however, we all agreed that there were others who are more greatly impacted.
100% of states plan to reopen the economy from June 30th
50% of small businesses will shut down in America in less than 6 months
99% of all businesses in America are small businesses (<500 employees)
59% are concerned about losing in-person customer traffic
Source: Main Street America Small Business Survey
How can we help small businesses…
- regain consumer confidence that it’s safe to shop with them?
- communicate their safety efforts and improvements?
- help small businesses resume their operations in the new normal?
The Solution
We wanted to design something that would address these pain points of returning to normalcy but also provide value to small businesses after the pandemic. Our two main stakeholders are the business owners and customers.
Introducing…Local.ly
Assisting local businesses to implement a safe shopping environment to restore trust within its community.
A platform exclusively for small business spaces
- to gain back the customer confidence in small businesses
- to provide a safe shopping environment and experience
- to enable smart launch in the new normal
Key Features — For business owners
- Easily implementable safety guidelines
- Access location-based 10-step reopening guides to ensure a hassle-free smart launch
- Apply for certification with our rigorous guidelines & ensure your business is safety compliant
2. Monitor customer flow in a single click
- Incentivize token booking with partner deals that promote workplace safety
- Request dynamic help when you need assistance navigating reopening
- Redistribute your traffic over a day to create a safe environment while maintaining the overall traffic
3. One app to relaunch your business
- Adjust parameters to suit your unique business needs
- Communicate and advertise your efforts in maintaining a safe environment to your community
Key Features — For Customers
- Set your availability
- Set your availability to schedule visits to community stores
- Get guaranteed entrance and safely socially distance with our token system
2. Filter by key store information
- Filter with safety measures
- Gain transparency into crowd occupancy of a store
3. Check store certifications
- Shop at clean & safe stores that are Local.ly certified
- Reserve tokens at the business of your choice to guarantee access and skip the line
What if I have no internet access?
One of the considerations we had for this solution is that we wanted to make it accessible to as many as possible. To tackle this issue, we looked into non-internet based solutions. A quick chatbot was created to illustrate this digital platform transformed into something simpler. To test the chatbot we created follow the steps below! (This requires Whatsapp)
Step 1: Whatsapp
(415) 523 8886
Step 2: Register with a first text
join<space>sent-coat
Step 3: Type any of these
Hi
slots<space>store1
status<space>store2
Data-Driven Design
So, how do we know that this could work? We conducted interviews with small business owners and a survey that received over 100 responses across 15 countries.
Customers felt…
60% of people don’t feel safe when going shopping
77% responded positively to scheduled time slots
88% support small businesses
90% feel okay about anonymous data used to calculate store occupancy levels
Small business owners said…
“We’re trying, and taking the necessary precautions”
“Yes, it will be safe to shop”
“Ultimately, we need to regain the customers’ trust”
Small business owners surveyed in Middlesex County.
So, what is our unique value proposition?
Business centered
Our service targets small businesses as their primary consumer. Before you can get customers you need businesses to successfully start up again.
Credible Safety Guidelines
Working with organizations to create a 10-Step guideline to simplify the firehose of COVID-19 regulation into checklists to follow for reopening. Location-based, so you can ensure your business follows your immediate governing authority.
Partner Cooperation
Our partnership with existing organizations will ensure cooperation in existing communities. Partnerships can leverage our platform usage to systematically reopen businesses according to their community guidelines.
Revenue Streams
We envision this platform to utilize the well-known freemium model with the premium model granting credibility to small businesses and allowing preferential access for customers.
Free
Guests can see what measures their local businesses implement and check safety certifications and get Tokens by referring businesses.
Secondary Stream
Customers can pay for preferential safe access, last-minute Token acquisitions, and access to member-partner deals
Principal Stream
Businesses pay to get search preferences, get Local.ly Trusted certification, and access 10-step re-opening guides.
What happens after COVID-19 passes?
The platform will continue to give a voice to small businesses and maintain it’s presence in their community with the added benefit of rebuilding trust now. It can provide a space where we can help provide resources that small businesses lack.
Pre-ordering
Building a pre-ordering feature to allow customers to pick up items curbside
Inventory Management
Display inventory online and supply an affordable Enterprise Resource Planning Platform to improve small business performance
Expanding Reach
Growing the business to Latin America, Asia, Africa, and other integrated communities
Passive Design
Using crowd simulation, we can research and design passive layouts and spaces optimized for protecting health.
Reflection
I was incredibly proud of my team of accomplishing everything above in less than 48 hours. Although this isn’t a real solution yet, I hope that this has inspired conversations or actions that wouldn’t have happened otherwise. I met many talented and kind-hearted individuals in such a short time and has re-energized me to take action on issues that matter to me. There was something amazing about meeting strangers and seeing how everyone wanted to make a positive change.
Takeaways:
- There are many problems worth solving. We must choose the right problems to solve and approach them in a manner that yields the most impact.
- Try something out of your comfort zone. Do different things and learn from them.
- Take a moment to step back from whatever you’re doing and just listen. Just feel. Just see. Re-evaluate if what you’re doing is what you want to be doing.
If you’ve made it this far, thank you so much for reading! Please reach out to me or comment with any thoughts, I really appreciate your time.
Random thoughts:
- What kind of stress are people experiencing when they want to protest for movements they care deeply about but also want to be responsible by practicing social distancing? Is there a safer way to protest yet still have an impact?
- (Less pressing issue) — Many of us have experienced the moment when a Zoom user cuts out with a bad internet connection, but no one wants to ask them to repeat themselves…is there a feature that could improve this experience?
