Eight million people produce 64,000 tons of waste every week in New York City.
Without incinerators or landfills, what's to be done with these heaps? Our hackathon team decided to focus on how might we better use and redistribute excess materials from individuals and businesses, specifically furniture.
We spent half a day doing open exploration and contemplating different solutions that would cater to people that are looking to get rid of furniture due to a decision to change decor in their house, trying to make some cash, or the more common transient “New Yorker” seen in the city.
One idea that stuck in our heads was a reverse auction model. A way for sellers to lower the price of a listed item as the date to vacate gets closer.
GAWN is a service offered through a mobile app that allows sellers to automatically lower the price of their goods over time, and alerts buyers who are interested in the items every time the price is lowered. Once a purchase is made, Gawn offers delivery at a fixed price within certain boroughs in the city.
You love your dog, but sometimes is hard to be with them all the time.
Guilt, sadness, and anxiety are common emotions experienced by dog owners who lack the time to tend to their dogs during work days.
In turn, dogs become anxious and destructive if their owners won't care for them in time.
Dog walkers are certainly helpful but often times finding the perfect fit for your dog's personality and needs is challenging.
Bianca & Balou enjoy morning walks. She is a project manager and spends her work days on her laptop and tablet.
Bianca often rushes from work to let Balou out and uses a professional dog walker 3 times a week. If she doesn't tend to her dog on time, he becomes destructive because he's anxious to get outside.
She likes to have walkers who are compassionate and understanding of her dog's needs, specially because Balou needs medication every 12 hours. When Bianca walks Balou, she likes to let her dog socialize and play with other dogs.
Izzy & Randy meet twice a week for a 30 minute walk. Izzy is a professional dog walker and an artist. He spends his free time drawing on his tablet or cooking.
His weekly schedule spans only one neighborhood, so he walks 5-6 dogs in one day and it takes him around 6 hours. Sometimes he doesn't walk the dogs but just plays with them at their place, and very rarely does he have to walk two dogs at once so he takes good care of the dogs he walks.
Carmen & Rocco met when she volunteered at a shelter. Carmen is not a regular at the shelter because she fears she will adopt a dog and she is not ready for the commitment.
Carmen's friends ask her to sit their dogs sometimes, but not too often. She thinks walking dogs is a good opportunity to relax and get to the park.
Carmen is a freelance designer and lives with her boyfriend. She enjoys taking photographs and practices indoor sports. Most of the time she finds herself working at a computer or corresponding email with clients on her mobile phone.
LEESH is a community that provides members with a digital presence to identify themselves and build a positive reputation. It fosters relationships with other members in order to further trust ties.
The relationships will give life to the community by creating offline interactions, like dog walks, and will spark conversations that support new dog lovers' need for compassionate and caring walkers.
The landing page for the web app allows the user to immediately initiate a search based on their location and the date and time when they may want a dog walk. Right after the search they may browse results based on the distance, availability or common friends from social networks, if signed up.
In order to access more details of potential dog walker candidates, users may sign up via social networks. Connecting more social profiles provides each member with a trusted rating. Once a user signs up they may review the full profile of a potential walker candidate. Users may also fave a potential candidate in order to be matched with them, if both profiles are good together.
If a dog walker candidate is a good match for a dog owner, then the owner will receive a notification from the app. In turn, an owner may request a play date to get their dog to become familiar with a new walker. The application will allow owners to keep a calendar and manage their past and upcoming walks. The most important feature for the community is for members to give feedback about dogs and walkers to build up a positive reputation.
Once a dog owner has created an account and added buddies to their walker circle, they may find walkers they trust that are available to walk their dogs. The app will allow owners to search by date and time, as well, as the length of the walk their dog needs.
A specific scenario for which the app is design, is for dog owners to have a safety net when last minute commitments come up and they find themselves tied down or unable to walk their dog. For those cases, walkers are allowed to be "on-call", this way dog owners can schedule an impromptu walk without advanced notice.
How to communicate to your stylist what we have in mind for a haircut?
Best.Cut offers curated recommendations of hairstyles with visuals and tags that provide detailed information for a stylist to replicate a look. It also allows people to schedule, pay and rate a service seamlessly within a single ecosystem. Documenting every look and the inspiration behind that look generates content that other people can browse and use.
