minditsHack <2021> was a totally new experience for our team – !TABU team because none of us participated in a hackathon before. The experience was like a rollercoaster full of adrenaline, ups and downs moments, laughs, jokes, lessons learned and the most important thing- teamwork. We were thrilled that Education was the key point of the hackathon because it is a complex subject that can be approached from many perspectives.

Starting with our team motto “Talent wins coding challenges, but teamwork and intelligence win hackathons” we entered the 24hchallenge to deliver a concept that we would be proud of and despite the obstacles we encountered, we did not give up and we went all the way until the end.

Now, let me share with you the retrospective of our project and some sneak peeks behind the concept. Before we go on, I must confess something- we chose our team’s name after we decided the purpose of the app. In a span of a few days, we created a small team of people from diverse departments and teams, and we got to work crafting an idea and an identity for our team.  

The WHY behind YAF app?

Our brainstorming for the app started from a social context about some major problems in Romania: Sexual education, Bulling and Sexual abuse that are often treated as “TABU” subjects.

Taking into consideration these stringent problems, we decided to create YAF (Your Other Friend), a tool meant to be a promoter for education, awareness, and the creator of a “Safe zone” where you can talk about your problems and get real time help from specialists.

Raising awareness and education of the youth were on our minds. After debating how we would approach this, the result consisted of the tool’s main 4 modules, destined to approach the major problems that we mentioned earlier.

-  Learning module streams thematical videos that support user interaction with clickable scenarios (the good and the bad example). This module also contains a gamification area with prizes.

-  Group discussion sessions module for organized sessions divided by subjects of interest, that are administrated by specialized persons (psychologists, doctors etc.).

-  Talk to a specialist module for session with specialized doctors to offer guidance.  

-  Events module for dedicated events on education.

When the hackathon started, we had a great enthusiasm, and everyone knew what to do. We tried the idea of a fully functional app, but the technical challenges proved to be too much for us to handle, and we decided to scrap that part altogether and focus on a mock site and the way we are going to „sell” our business idea to our colleagues. We finished the 4 modules in the morning and at that time we were very tired but that did not stop us using the last stamina to also create the business plan.

The team behind the scenes:

The fun fact is that all of us came from different daily working teams and even though we haven’t worked together before, we really matched, and we had a perfect synergy. Although our backgrounds were different, and we didn’t have a lot of experience in developing apps, we decided right from the start that we won’t let that aspect discourage us.

We crafted an idea and we believed in it! We didn’t expect to be selected in the top 3 winning teams and we are very proud of our achievement and our app – “This experience taught me that the first step to any successful project is to surround yourself with like-minded people and to believe in your idea.” (Mihai)

In the end, our main takeaway is that we worked together and tried something new – „Constantly trying out new things is the only we can continue growing.” (Mihai) – Our advice for you is to embrace new experiences as often as you have the chance, seek to learn something new and never give up!  

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