The Buddee Network

Framing the Problem 🐝

What is the problem you are trying to solve? Who does it affect?

Unexpected no-shows at events provide an additional challenge to the already difficult task of organising events. This issue is especially prominent for events which are free to attend, as there is no monetary accountability for attendees after registering. When the number of attendees is uncertain, event organisers are unable to accurately predict requirements for various logistics such as appropriate venue size, number of staff to hire, and amount of food to prepare.

From the perspective of registrants, most of whom are already juggling various responsibilities in different aspects of life, staying committed to attending an event which they may have signed up for months ago falls to the bottom of their priority list. This is especially true when there is a lack of personal attachment towards events.

A tool which establishes a sense of personal accountability and attachment for registrants towards events without necessitating charging a fee would play the role of easing the event organisation process while elevating the excitement experienced by registrants prior to the event.

Idea Explanation 🐝

What is your idea? How does it fix the problem?

The Buddee Network is inspired by, amongst other things, Tamagotchis, Duolingo, and Nintendo StreetPass. Imagine a tool which combines appeal to emotion, loss aversion, positive reinforcement, and regular reminders to fuel excitement and anticipation leading up to events, making registrants personally invested in attending events after registering.

The Buddee Network introduces you to your own personal Buddee™ (not actually trademarked) upon joining, which you are then able to feed and buy accessories for by completing tasks such as making LinkedIn posts prior to the event and scanning QR codes which are exclusively available on event-day. The Buddee™ is an endearing digital companion which evokes a sense of emotional attachment and responsibility. Options for customisability locked behind tasks aimed at increasing engagement with the event leading up to the date further fosters a sense of connection with the event itself, with the most exclusive customisation options being dependent on attendance on the day.

The Buddee Network not only reduces the chances of registrants dropping out of events, but encourages pre-event behaviour which improves attendees' event-readiness and social engagement with the event.

https://www.buddee-network.vercel.app/

(Please don't judge us based entirely on the deployed app, my Vercel deployment script/expo routes are broken and I don't have time to fix them)

Implementation 🐝

How do all the pieces fit together? Does your frontend make requests to your backend? Where does your database fit in?

For this project, we built a react-native app. We mocked database behaviour using JSON and some persist functionality. In further implementation, we would want to build a database, authentication/login, and build out the networking aspect of the app!

Project Technology Stack 🐝

We opted to use Nexpo Go for development, as an effective framework to develop a multiplatform application.

Nexpo Go is a TypeScript based React Native framework that was suited well to our needs.

We utilised a series of NPM packages to speed up development rather than handrolling lots of solutions.

The project is entirely front-end and client side right now, but uses hardcoded data in a format easily reproduceable in a standard relational database.

The project is deployed to Vercel for public viewing (Albeit with a janky build script we've been unable to fix!)

Challenges 🐝

What did you struggle with? How did you overcome it?

Accomplishments 🐝

What did you learn? What did you accomplish?

• Successfully built a functional multi platform app which communicates the core ideas of our project.

• First time using React Native for several team members.

• Learned how to pace ourselves for a very short-term project and to prioritise the most important features while avoiding scope creep.

• Learned to rapidly prototype and come up with ideas -- no idea is too silly or unrealistic during the ideation phase.

🐝 Bonus Learnings

• Learned how to make bee pixel art.

• Learned that the stripes of a bee are yellow (not black).

• Learned that bees come in colours other than yellow and black.

Next Steps 🐝

What are the next steps for your project? How can you improve it

• Implement more features.

  • Add friends and get exclusive gifts when you meet them in person at an event.

  • Add networking features (communities, hives, integration with LinkedIn).

  • Add leaderboard feature.

  • Implement push notification reminders.

• Build the backend and database.

• Polish the frontend.

• Improve code quality -- make code more modular, readable, re-usable.

• Explore how partners/sponsors/event planners can get involved and be a part of the monetization strategy.

• User-testing and feedback.

• More accessories and collectable items!