Project Spotlight: From Us
From Us was a Fixathon entry by a group of developers and designers who enjoy making cool things and want to make the world a better place.
Hey, thanks for competing in The Climate Fixathon! What motivated you to take part in the Fixathon?
It feels good to make software for a good cause.
Where did you get the idea for your project?
We all threw a bunch of ideas in a list and then made our way down the list and worked out any issues and the feasibility of each. We figured people need frequent reminders and one of the ways to tackle climate change is to create habits that are easy to follow. We “gamified” these habits to encourage people to invite their friends and use the app more often.
How did you find the build process for your project?
Most of our experience is with web development but it makes more sense to have a mobile-accessible habit tracker be cause people always have their phone with them. We ran into some problems because none of us were that experienced with native development. That slowed us down a bit but we still plan to finish the app and continue to maintain it.
Do you know of many people using your project yet? What’s the response been like?
So far our application concept and design has had positive feedback, but we will not be able to receive any experience/use feedback until the application has been completed.
What do you hope your project can achieve in the future?
As a habit tracker, we hope people will continue to re-evaluate their daily habits in order to lower their carbon footprint. We also hope to raise some awareness about what habits are the easiest to change and have the biggest impact on climate change. We’re planning on donating some of the cash incentives to appropriate climate centered causes, this list is still in the works. We have greatly appreciated following the direction where Offset Earth is headed.
Did you learn anything new about the climate emergency in the process of building your project?
We all followed a few of the other applications in the hackathon and learned more about climate change in our own time. There’s a cool project called 30wears that is focusing on the clothing industry and we did not realize how much the clothing industry affects climate change, it’s wild.
Now that the Fixathon is finished. What are your future plans for your project?
To finish it! We think we will have the app working well and live by the end of the year, stay tuned!
Do you have any recommended resources that helped you learn about climate breakdown and create your project?
The resources that were provided on the Fixathon website were quite helpful, especially the mind map!
Finally, with the experience of launching a project aiming to help fix the climate behind you. What advice would you give to other makers who want to make something to help but aren’t sure what?
What we kind of realized was that we have to build a project that provides more of an incentive than that “feel good feeling”. People are busy and it’s easy to put something like climate change, which is arguably difficult to comprehend, on the back burner. We are planning on building some financial penalties into our app when friends compete on habits. That way you have three incentives, to help save the planet, to not lose your money, and to not lose to your friend in your friendly competition.
The Climate Fixathon is the world’s first online hackathon to help fix the climate. It ran from 2nd-30th August 2019 with more than $10k in prizes won. You can learn more at fixathon.io.
