Posted by Merve Isler, Regional Developer Relations Community Manager, Turkey
Some challenges affect everyone regardless of borders or nationality, and combating climate issues is no different. Aysu Keçeci, a student in Turkey with an avowed reverence for the sea, found herself increasingly distressed by the growing amount of plastic in the world’s oceans. She notes, “As an Aegean, the seas are a big part of my life, Unfortunately, I have grown up observing that our waters are polluted daily, and I know that plastics now make up 80% of marine garbage, and if we don't take precautions, there will be more plastic in our seas than fish in 2050. That's why plastic pollution has always been a problem I wanted to address.”
As part of a global community, Google Developer Student Clubs (GDSCs) members are empowered to make an impact on the issues that matter both on the global and local scales. She decided to join the 2021 Solution Challenge, and took part in a local hackathon organized by the GDSC Solution Challenge Incubation Program. She and other GDSC members at Bogazici University on her team chose to create an app to encourage plastic recycling, never guessing it would lead to mentorship, guidance, and tools to launch an environmentally-focused social enterprise start-up.
Choosing the features and functions
When building the app, the team leveraged Flutter for its cross-platform advantages and used other Google tools such as Firebase, Firestore, Cloud, Maps, Fonts, and Analytics. In the app, users locate and open dedicated recycling bins by scanning a QR code or using a smartwatch or wristband. They can earn “coins” based on the amount of plastic they recycle and by engaging in challenges. Meanwhile, the app, called WE, displays tangible benefits to the environment from the users’ recycling efforts.
Encouraging behavior change with gamification
Aysu acknowledges that designing an app is one thing--bringing it into reality is another. Keçeci shares, “in real product development, user experience, ease of learning, and convenience become more critical than when you are designing a prototype.” To drive adoption, the WE App team chose gamification as a framework for the recycling app, looking to engage and motivate users by adding competition, social interaction, and feedback into the UI and help make recycling easy and fun. Aysu was particularly inspired by entrepreneur Colin Huang, who integrated gamification into Pinduoduo, an e-commerce company that encourages user collaboration.
From idea to impact
After three intense days of working at a feverish pace on little sleep, Aysu and the team presented their idea--which won the hackathon! The WE app then got selected as one of the top 50 projects in the Solution Challenge(with the support of Solution Challenge Incubation Program), landing the team special mentorship sessions with Google developers. This support on many levels led to their acceptance in one of Turkey’stop incubators:İTÜ Çekirdek İncubation Center, which offered a working space and exposure to the center’s network of companies and entrepreneurs. The project was also accepted into the Arya WIP Investment Preparation Acceleration Program, which supports women entrepreneurs, earning the team even more credibility and traction.
Perseverance makes all the difference
Aysu acknowledges that working with a small team of three developers can present new problems and opportunities every day--but support from Google mentors, jury members, and GDSC helps. “It's very bumpy, but it's been a journey that we've learned a lot about and enjoyed,” she says. The team is currently working with Borusan Mannesmann, one of the largest industrial companies in Turkey, to provide the app and bins to employees. They’re also competing in the semifinals of the İTÜ Çekirdek İncubation Center’s Big Bang Startup Challenge and talking with other potential corporate partners.
Looking towards the future
The team is already thinking about WE’s next stage. She and the other founders plan to redesign the WE bins to look more stylish and start producing simple products from the plastics collected, perhaps by partnering with innovative companies around the world that value sustainability.
“I've actually seen that people value living in a sustainable world. So it was surprising and gratifying for me to realize that they were ready to do something about it and take action because even people who did not recycle in the old status quo adapted very quickly.”
As she considers the progress she’s made so far, Aysu credits the GDSC’s culture of innovation, support, and feedback for playing a big part in WE’s creation and success. “You can quickly get involved in a community,” she says, “and thus you have a better opportunity to pursue things that excite you.”
Posted by Rodrigo Hirooka, Regional Lead for Brazil Developer Communities
Perceiving that one is not like everyone else can be painful. Yet, the experience can also be illuminating. As a child in Brazil, João Victor Ipirajá, lead of the Google Student Developer Club (GDSC) at the Federal Institute of Science and Technology of Ceará (IFCE), knew he was different. He often felt overwhelmed by physical sensations and missed social cues. When he was eventually diagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum, he was actually relieved. Far from being a limitation, the realization gave him a new perspective on his intellectual strengths—such as his ability to perceive mathematical concepts in a highly visual way and his capacity for logical thinking and computer programming. “I was reborn to a full life shortly after I received this diagnosis,” he said in a video he made about his experiences as a person with ASD.
The World Health Organization estimates that 1 out of every 160 children has an autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Yet despite how relatively common ASD is, the wide diversity of the condition and misunderstandings about neurodiversity can still make it difficult to diagnose.
This newfound understanding of how his mind works helped guide him on his educational path as well as career direction. Instead of attending a traditional high school, which he felt would not play to his natural talents and strengths, João decided to study at IFCE, a technical college that also offered a high school program. There, he learned computer science and computer engineering, picking up new programming languages and honing his developer skills.
But most importantly, he felt he had “discovered his place.” His success at IFCE solving problems, using new tools, and working successfully with others soon outweighed his fears about meeting new people and not fitting in. The experience of finding a community convinced him of the need to encourage others to find theirs--and to help build them as well.
Joining GDSC and expanding awareness of neurodiversity
After high school, João decided to continue at IFCE for college to focus on computer engineering, where he learned new programming languages and tools like TensorFlow and Flutter. He also joined IFCE’s GDSC chapter, which further exposed him to new people and ideas. “It’s an honor to be part of this program, meeting people from all over the world and improving my speaking skills, especially in English,” he says. “For me, it’s something magical. I learned so much.”
At the same time, João was beginning to recognize the lack of understanding about neurodiversity in Brazil, even among technical audiences and employers in general. “Some people think we are crazy or we’re unable to do big projects,” he says. Even “good” stereotypes can be harmful--for example, many neurodiverse people have an ability to “hyperfocus” and work or study uninterrupted for hours on end. “People think it’s a superpower,” he says, but such extreme periods of concentration can also be unhealthy and lead to burnout.
Planting the seeds of change with GDSC events and projects
As the IFCE GDSC lead, João decided to concentrate his efforts on expanding awareness of neurodiversity, as well as other types of diversity—sexual, racial, religious, etc.—to help others find the sense of freedom and belonging he has experienced. “Many people don’t feel free to be whoever they want to be,” he says.
The chapter’s efforts include planning speaker sessions with diversity activists and specialists from the community, creating social media content in partnership with IFCE, creating workshops with other Brazilian GDSC chapters, and making diversity a priority when choosing core positions on the team.
He recently spoke at a DevFest event on the topic of “Understanding the autistic spectrum universe,” in which he explained the range of characteristics and abilities autistic people can display. He also wants to do more speaking events in Portuguese to break stereotypes about autism in Brazil specifically. “It’s just a student club, but we are trying to deconstruct stereotypes and prejudice that are so culturally strong in Brazil,” he says.
Cultivating understanding and acceptance in Brazil and beyond
Ultimately, João feels that providing more opportunities and platforms for diverse people will help others. As the community continues to come together, he might be able to help those who have that same sense of difference João remembers having as a child. João and others on his GDSC team especially hope that these efforts will advance a greater understanding around how to elevate and celebrate members of marginalized groups in his home country. However, his goals go beyond mere acceptance: he notes that people who feel more comfortable about who they are also feel more confident to fully participate in all aspects of society. People with diverse abilities and characteristics offer unique skills and perspectives that can also translate into advantages, especially among technical audiences and employers.
“It’s very important for people to have this opportunity to share their stories, to have these environments to make people understand,” he says. “For me, it’s very important, and I’m very honored.”
Posted by HyeJung Lee, DevRel Community Manager and Soonson Kwon, DevRel Program Manager
Let’s explore highlights and achievements of vast Google Machine Learning communities by region for the last quarter. Activities of experts (GDE, professional individuals), communities (TFUG, TensorFlow user groups), students (GDSC, student clubs), and developers groups (GDG) are presented here.
Key highlights
30 days of ML with Kaggle is designed to help beginners study ML using Kaggle Learn courses as well as a competition specifically for the participants of this program. Collaborated with the Kaggle team so that +30 the ML GDEs and TFUG organizers participated as volunteers as online mentors as well as speakers for this initiative.
GDE Minori MATSUDA (Japan)’s project on Coca-Cola Bottlers Japan was published on Google Cloud Japan Blog covering creating an ML pipeline to deploy into real business within 2 months by using Vertex AI. This is also published on GCP blog in English.
GDE Chansung Park (Korea) and Sayak Paul (India) published many articles on GCP Blog. First, “Image search with natural language queries” explained how to build a simple image parser from natural language inputs using OpenAI's CLIP model. From this second “Model training as a CI/CD system: (Part I, Part II)” post, you can learn more about why having a resilient CI/CD system for your ML application is crucial for success. Last, “Dual deployments on Vertex AI” talks about end-to-end workflow using Vertex AI, TFX and Kubeflow.
In China, GDE Junpeng Ye used TensorFlow 2.x to significantly reduce the codebase (15k → 2k) on WeChat Finder which is a TikTok alternative in WeChat. GDE Dan lee wrote an article on Understanding TensorFlow Series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3-1, Part 3-2, Part 4
GDE Matthew Kelcey from Australia gave a talk on JAX at PyConAU event. Mat gave an overview to fundamentals of JAX and an intro to some of the libraries being developed on top.
In Singapore, TFUG Singapore dived back into some of the latest papers, techniques, and fields of research that are delivering state-of-the-art results in a number of fields. GDE Martin Andrews included a brief code walkthrough for the released PerceiverIO code at perceiver- highlighting what JAX looks like, how Haiku relates to Sonnet, but also the data loading stuff which is done via tf.data.
GDE Aakash Nain has published the TF-JAX tutorial series from Part 4 to Part 8. Part 4 gives a brief introduction about JAX (What/Why), and DeviceArray. Part 5 covers why pure functions are good and why JAX prefers them. Part 6 focuses on Pseudo Random Number Generation (PRNG) in Numpy and JAX. Part 7 focuses on Just In Time Compilation (JIT) in JAX. And Part 8 covers vmap and pmap.
GDE Sayak Paul and Soumik Rakshit shared a new NLP dataset for multi-label text classification. The dataset consists of paper titles, abstracts, and term categories scraped from arXiv.
North America
During the GSoC (Google Summer of Code), some GDEs mentored or co-mentored students. GDE Margaret Maynard-Reid (USA) mentored TF-GAN, Model Garden, TF Hub and TFLite products. You can get some of her experience and tips from the GDE Blog. And you can find GDE Sayak Paul (India) and Googler Morgan Roff’s GSoC experience in (co-)mentoring TensorFlow and TF Hub as well.
On the other side of the world, in Brazil, GDE Hugo Zanini Gomes wrote an article about “Custom object detection in the browser using TensorFlow.js” using the TensorFlow 2 Object Detection API and Colab was posted on the TensorFlow blog.
Data Pipelines for ML was talked about by GDE Nathaly Alarcon Torrico from Bolivia explained all the phases involved in the creation of ML and Data Science products, starting with the data collection, transformation, storage and Product creation of ML models.
TechTalk “Machine Learning Competitivo: Top 1% en Kaggle (Video)“ was hosted by TFUG Santiago (Chile). In this talk the speaker gave a tour of the steps to follow to generate a model capable of being in the top 1% of the Kaggle Leaderboard. The focus was on showing the libraries and“ tricks ”that are used to be able to test many ideas quickly both in implementation and in execution and how to use them in productive environments.
Posted by Kyle Paul, Google Developer Student Club Regional Lead CA & US
When Chloe Quijano arrived at the University of Toronto to study Applied Sciences, she immediately noticed that few of the professors or teaching assistants in the program looked like her. She noticed a lack of relatable role models online and on social media as well.
Chloe felt strongly about the importance of representation. Whether based on race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation or disability status, she understood the importance of being able to find relatable role models in her field--and the implications of a lack of diversity. "It holds back the students wishing to go into the field," she says.
Bureau of Labor Statistics findings on women in computing occupations
Worse, she points out, those that do enter technical careers may experience impostor syndrome: “We often downplay the skills we have as developers.”
Discovering Google Developer Student Clubs
Data backs up Chloe’s impression about the lack of diversity in tech: According to the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT), women made up only a quarter of the workforce in computing in 2020. Of those, just 3% were African-American, 7% Asian, and 2% Hispanic.
Determined to find a way to combat these trends, Chloe decided to look for a supportive community where she could help make a difference. While searching for a technology club where she could meet and learn from others, she stumbled across the university’s Google Developer Student Club. Noticing that the club was soliciting applications to serve as a lead, she decided to apply—and got the post!
Chloe quickly took steps to advance the group’s mission: to empower all students in technology. To help students like her connect with leaders and role models from a diverse range of backgrounds and experiences, she spearheaded the effort to organize the first-ever DSC Women in Tech Conference.
Held last March, the two-day virtual event featured 13 speakers from a range of backgrounds—including CEOs, Google employees, and recent graduates who landed internships and positions at prominent tech companies. Topics included charting your own path in tech, landing that first job, going the entrepreneurship route, and leveraging the power of a personal narrative. Hands-on workshops included a day-long hackathon challenge focused on redesigning a website to be more accessible and user-friendly for senior citizens. Ultimately, the conference drew more than 250 attendees from around the world, including South Korea, Morocco, Brazil, and China.
Expanding the Range of GDSC Events
After the conference’s success, Chloe continued organizing initiatives and programs for her GDSC group. She helped start a monthly tech meetup for women students, and a weekly online series highlighting potential careers paths, and featuring tech leaders as guests. In just under eight months, the chapter hosted 40 events, reaching more than 1700 participants.
Examples of recent GDSC events at the University of Toronto
Chloe understood that greater encouragement and support can have long-term effects—not only while students are in school, but throughout their careers. “Showing more representation in tech greatly increases our confidence, innovation, and performance,” she points out. “Especially in academic environments, having a sense of belonging and community with role models for students to look up to can lead to success in tech together.”
Looking Ahead: Growth, Inspiration, and Connections
Having completed her term as the GDSC lead for the University of Toronto earlier this year, Chloe says the experience and her continuing involvement with the group has been instrumental in making her the student developer she is today. “I've been able to connect with student leaders globally from diverse backgrounds, academically, professionally, and culturally. It's inspiring to work alongside students who have unique perspectives.”
Such connections have become especially meaningful as she takes steps toward her post-graduation career, such as her first internship last summer, where she worked closely with several women software engineers at Microsoft. “Getting to work with them was really exciting and motivating,” she says.
Chloe can already see how her GDSC experience will support her professional development while also inspiring others to join the field. “I’m always going to be looking to become a better leader,” she says. “And then maybe other students like me who are looking for someone who looks like them, they’ll see me and think, ‘Yes, it’s possible.’”
Ultimately, Chloe says, helping others brings its own rewards: “Success takes care of those who create success for others.”
Posted by Salim Abid, MENA Regional Lead, Developer Relations
Yara Elkady, Google Developer Student Club (GDSC) Lead, can trace her passion for tech all the way back to a single moment. She was sitting in computer class when her middle school teacher posed a question to the class:
“Did you know that you can create apps and games like the ones that you spend so much time on?”
It was a simple question, but it was enough to plant the seed that would define the trajectory of Yara’s career. Following in the footsteps of so many beginners before her, Yara did a Google search to find out more about creating apps. She didn’t realize it at the time, but Yara had just taken her first steps down the path to becoming a developer.
Knowing that she wanted to pursue tech further, Yara went to college at Misr University for Science and Technology (MUST) in Giza, Egypt to study computer science. In her second year, she had begun reading more about artificial intelligence. Yara was blown away by the potential of training a machine to make decisions on its own. With machine learning, she could pursue more creative ideas that went beyond what was possible with traditional programming. As Yara explains, “It felt like magic”. Still, she felt lost like any beginner interested in AI.
Enter Google Developer Student Clubs
Yara first discovered the GDSC chapter at MUST through her school’s social media page. For the entirety of her second year, Yara attended workshops and saw firsthand how GDSC events could leave an impact on students aspiring to become developers. With help from Google Developer Student Clubs, Yara was able to grow her skills as a developer and connect with peers who shared her interests. At the end of the year, Yara applied to be a Lead so that she could help more students engage with the community. Not too long after, Yara was accepted as a GDSC Lead for the 2020-2021 season!
A GDSC MUST speaker session
As part of becoming a GDSC Lead, Yara enrolled in the MENA DSC Leads Academy to receive hands-on training in various Google technologies. Despite being only the first time the Academy had ever been hosted (both in person and virtually), 100+ Leads from 150 GDSC chapters attended over the course of six weeks. Yara applied to the Machine Learning track and was chosen for the program. During the course, Yara mastered advanced machine learning concepts, including classical ML models, deep learning, data manipulation, and TensorFlow training. She also got to work with other Leads on advanced machine learning projects, helping her gain even more confidence in her ML knowledge.
Soon after passing the program, Yara collaborated with the GDSC Leads she met during the course to host a one-month ML track to pass on the knowledge they had learned to the GDSC community. Through the sessions she hosted, Yara was contacted by BambooGeeks, a startup that creates training opportunities for local tech aspirants to help them become industry-ready. Yara was offered a job as a machine learning instructor, and could now create sessions for the largest audience of trainees she’d ever worked with.
The road to certification
Yara didn’t realize it yet, but even more opportunities were headed her way. She learned from the GDSC MENA program manager that GDSC Leads would have the opportunity to take the TensorFlow Certification exam, if they wished to take it. It wouldn’t be easy, but Yara knew she had all the resources she needed to succeed. She wasted no time and created a study group with other GDSC Leads working to get certified. Together, Yara and her fellow Leads pulled endless all-nighters over the next few months so that they could skill up for the exam and support each other through the arduous study process. They also worked with Elyes Manai, a ML Google Developer Expert, who gave them an overview of the exam and recommended resources that would help them pass.
Thanks to those resources, support from her peers, and tons of hard work, Yara passed the exam and received her TensorFlow certification! And she wasn’t the only one. 11 other MENA GDSC Leads also passed the exam to receive their certifications. Yara and her study partners were the first women in Egypt to be featured in the TensorFlow Certificate Network, and Yara became one of 27 people in Africa to receive the TensorFlow Developer Certificate!
Yara’s TensorFlow Developer Certificate
When Yara looks back at how she was able to fast track from beginner to certified machine learning developer in just a year, she credits Google Developer Student Clubs with:
Offering advanced Machine Learning training
Fostering connections with other Leads to host study jams
Providing guidance from machine learning GDEs
TensorFlow certification exam prep
Exposure to opportunities that enabled her to inspire others
Endless community support
The truth is, students like Yara make Google Developer Student Clubs special by sharing their knowledge with the community and building a support system with their peers that extends far beyond the classroom.
On the importance of community, Yara says it best:
“Reaching your goals is a much more enjoyable process when you have someone with you on the same journey, to share your ups and downs, and push you to do more when you feel like quitting. Your success becomes their success and that gives more meaning to your accomplishments.”
If you’re a student who is ready to join your own Google Developer Student Club community, find one near you here.
Posted by Erica Hanson, Global Program Manager, Google Developer Student Clubs
What have we learned from the challenges that we’ve faced over the past year and continue to face today? How absolutely vital it is to protect our planet and the people living on it.
Enter the Solution Challenge, our annual contest inviting the global Google Developer Student Clubs (GDSC) community to develop solutions to real world problems utilizing Google technologies. This year’s Solution Challenge asks participants to solve for one or more of the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals, intended to promote employment for all, economic growth, and climate action.
The top 50 semi-finalists and the top 10 finalists were announced earlier this year. It all comes down to Demo Day on August 26th, where the finalists will present their solutions to Google and developers all around the world, live on YouTube. Here, judges will review their projects, ask questions, and choose the top 3 grand prize winners!
You can RSVP here to be a part of Demo Day, vote for the People’s Choice Award, and watch all the action as it unfolds live. Ahead of the event, get to know the top 10 finalists and their incredible solutions below.
Cameroon - Flow, University of Bamenda
UN Sustainable Goal Addressed: Goal 6: Clean Water & Sanitation
Flow is a mobile app that helps users easily find clean water sources nearby using Google Maps. Selecting a water source location on the map will tell users the name of the location, the status of the water source, and the approximate distance to the water source from the user’s current location. Flow was built with Firebase, Flutter, Google Cloud Platform, and Google Maps Platform. The app was developed by Alouzeh Brandone Mahbuh, Chi Karl Junior, Meh Mbeh Ida Delphine, and Nuikweh Lewis.
“The lack of water and quest for clean water in my community inspired us to select this goal. Our solution is a mobile application which makes use of a ‘live location’ feature to help members in my community easily find clean water sources.”
Canada - Helppier, University of Toronto
UN Sustainable Goals Addressed:Goal 3: Good Health & Wellbeing, Goal 10: Reduced Inequalities, Goal 11: Sustainable Cities
Helppier is an Android app that creates volunteering opportunities in local neighborhoods. With Helppier, you can volunteer to help out others, request a volunteer, and earn rewards. Unlike traditional volunteering positions with organizations, Helppier fosters a sense of community by allowing people to make a direct impact in their neighborhood. Helppier's ultimate goal is to make volunteering a regular part of peoples’ daily routines. The Android app was developed using Google Cloud Platform, Firebase, and Cloud Run by James Lee, Janice Cheung, Mohamed Amine Belabbes, and Oluwateleayo Oyekunle.
“With loneliness rates skyrocketing due to COVID, many people are feeling more isolated and in need of help, but may not have anyone in their neighborhood to turn to. Helppier facilitates the opportunity for people to connect with one another through acts of kindness, regardless of who they are or where they came from.”
Egypt - E-Owl, Future Academy
UN Sustainable Goals Addressed:Goal 3: Good Health & Wellbeing, Goal 4: Quality Education
E-Owl is a virtual education platform that helps professors create virtual meetings, exams, and posts. With E-Owl, students can also check their grades and assignments online. The web application features focus detection and monitors real-time emotion of students to help instructors improve their students’ learning experience. E-Owl was created using Firebase, Google Cloud Platform, and TensorFlow by Ahmed Mostafa Ibrahiem, Kerolos Kamal Botros, Khaled Abdel-Fattah Ahmed, and Mahmoud Said Ramadan Gad.
“Our main target is education and well-being. We are working on how to maintain learners' attention and motivation in the virtual classrooms and also effectively managing the progress of each student online.”
Germany - SimplAR, Technical University of Munich
UN Sustainable Goals Addressed:Goal 4: Quality Education, Goal 8: Decent Work & Economic Growth, Goal 10: Reduced Inequalities
SimplAR is an app that utilizes the power of Natural Language Processing to translate any text (newspapers, books, manuals, etc.) into simplified language just by taking a picture of it. The app is catered towards people with functional illiteracy who sometimes have difficulty comprehending text. SimplAR delivers text following plain language principles that is easy to understand, making reading experiences more accessible for everyone. Almo Sutedjo, Maria Pospelova, Sami Wirtensohn, and Viviana Sutedjo used Flutter and Firebase to develop their app.
“Around 1 in 7 people worldwide have difficulties understanding complicated texts due to functional illiteracy. We want to enable people with functional illiteracy to gain understanding about any text in any form, and therefore giving them the chance to lead a more independent life.”
India - Eye Of God, K. J. Somaiya College of Engineering
Eye of God is an app featuring an easy-to-use navigation system that helps people with visual impairment navigate to their destination by themselves without needing the assistance of others. The Eye of God navigation system uses voice feedback through the user’s smartphone which is mounted on a VR Headset, and vibrational feedback through a custom-made waist belt, to guide users in both indoor and outdoor settings. The app is built with Firebase, Flutter, Google Cloud Platform, TensorFlow, and more, by Anish Pawar, Gayatri Vijay Patil, Jatin Nainani, and Priyanka Hotchandani.
“Being blind or visually impaired doesn’t need to mean the loss of independence of getting to and from places. The advancement of technology can make it possible to help people move freely within their environments and get around safely regardless of their amount of vision.”
India - Swaasthy, Chitkara University
UN Sustainable Goals Addressed: Goal 3: Good Health & Wellbeing, Goal 4: Quality Education, Goal 8: Decent Work & Economic Growth
Swaasthy is a medical app made to uplift user health and increase access to healthcare. It contains medicine reminder functionality and the ability to make an SOS call to nearby ambulances, get an appointment with a virtual doc, and more. The team behind the app believes that their all-in-one approach will go a long way towards bringing down the death rate faced by patients in India due to delays in health services. Additionally, Swaasthy promotes education and economic growth by providing first responders with valuable training opportunities when they sign up via the app. Bhavesh Goyal, Himanshu Sharma, Ishan Sharma, and Kushal Bhanot used Flutter and Firebase to bring their idea to life.
“When it comes to saving a life, every millisecond counts! One in 10 patients in India dies on the way to the hospital. And we're here to change that. We're Swaasthy! The only health app you'll ever need. Solving real-life problems isn’t easy, but at the same time, it's not impossible.”
Indonesia - Game Your Fit, Binus University International
UN Sustainable Goal Addressed:Goal 3: Good Health & Wellbeing
Game Your Fit is an app that keeps track of your movements in real time using your smartphone's movement sensors. It promotes exercise and staying active by turning the experience into a game! The app features a variety of aerobic, anaerobic, and calisthenics exercises to target different areas of the user’s body. One of the app’s game modes, CardioCamera, uses Google’s MLKit AI library to detect movements that the user makes. The app is written in Kotlin and connected to a Firebase project, and was developed by Aric Hernando, Jason Christian Hailianto, Jason Jeremy Wijadi, and Monique Senjaya.
“We are interested in creating a solution for target 3.4, which is to reduce mortality from non-communicable diseases and promote mental health. We aim to improve the health of many, specifically teens and young adults, by designing a gamified exercising application experience.”
Philippines - i-RISE, University of the Philippines in the Visayas
Project Island Response and Intervention for Systematic Evacuation, or i-RISE, is a disaster risk management system that aims to bridge the information gap between local government units, disaster risk management offices, and the island communities of Tubigon, Bohol. The app includes tidal and weather information, evacuation warnings, rescue request functionality, climate change education, and more. i-Rise consists of a web app and mobile app, built with Flutter, Cloud Functions, Cloud Firestore, and Firebase. The project was built by Jian Hurl A. Asiado, Joerian E. Gauten, Patricia Marie C. Garcia, and Rex Ronter G. Ruiz.
“The Philippines is one of the world's most affected countries by climate change as it experiences the most frequent and strongest typhoons and sea level rise. The vision of Project i-RISE is disaster resilience as a national imperative where all Filipinos anywhere in the archipelago are inclusive of growth and are able to adapt to the adverse effects of climate change.”
Singapore - DementiCare, Nanyang Technological University
UN Sustainable Goal Addressed:Goal 3: Good Health & Wellbeing
DementiCare is an app equipped with a wide range of features to compliment caregiving for people living with dementia. With the app, caregivers can send notices to patients, access discussion forums, create a patient dashboard, and more. A user with dementia can send an SOS, access memories, view family data, and read notes from caregivers. DementiCare includes a simple interface for users living with dementia, and a feature-rich dashboard to help caregivers carry out their responsibilities without relying on any additional software. Aishik Nagar and Ritik Bhatia used Flutter and Firebase to build their app.
“Having personal relations suffering from Dementia and having cared for them several times, we knew firsthand how tough it was for patients and their caregivers to cope with Dementia. Our solution is DementiCare, a mobile application made to reduce, digitize, and revolutionize the barrier to skills, knowledge, and experience required for providing care to patients suffering from Dementia.”
Turkey - QRegister, Middle East Technical University
UN Sustainable Goals Addressed:Goal 3: Good Health & Wellbeing, Goal 12: Responsible Consumption & Production, Goal 15: Life on Land
QRegister is an app that removes the need for physical paper receipts upon transactions and instead encourages the use of QR codes for users to virtually keep track of all their receipts. The app reduces waste generation by eliminating paper receipts that usually end up as litter. BPA, a chemical often used in thermal receipts, can be absorbed through the skin and has been linked to a number of health concerns. By digitizing receipts, QRegister reduces the chemicals that we’re exposed to daily. QRegister was created with Firebase and Flutter by Alkım Dömeke, Deniz Karakay, Humeyra Bodur, and Murat Kaş.
“QRegister wants to raise awareness regarding the wastefulness of paper receipt production. Our team developed an environmentally friendly smart register that eliminates paper receipts and effortlessly stores purchase data.”
________________________
Feeling inspired and ready to learn more about Google Developer Student Clubs? Find a club near you here, and be sure to RSVP here to watch our upcoming Solution Challenge Demo Day on August 26th.
