There is no place like localhost:3000

As dramatic as it may sound, Hack the Valley 11 will change my life in ways I can’t even imagine yet, but I can already see it in the present.

Before this hackathon, I had a very narrow vision of what was genuinely possible for someone like me and someone my age. I thought some things could only happen after years of waiting.

But through the people I met at this hackathon, I properly and fully started to understand that opportunities are a product of action, believing in yourself, and a pinch of luck.

For Hack the Valley, my team and I created a web app called Tenshi (Japanese for angel) that helps people make sure their friends know they’re safe when they go out. Basically, you arm it before your night, pick someone you trust, and your phone checks in on you every so often. If you stop answering, Tenshi starts escalating, and eventually your friend gets a message with your last location and your battery. Even if your phone dies, it keeps going, because the timer runs on our server. With our web app, silence is the signal.

We ended up winning 2nd place in the Project KAZE challenge, which was about helping people who can’t ask for help themselves. I’m still a little in shock about that.

With this project I learned a bunch of new things, but the most important part is that I actually got to work with hardware. We built a little device with an Arduino that lets you check in with one touch and cancel an alarm with a secret joystick gesture, and it still works even if your phone is dead. That wasn’t something I ever thought I’d be doing, given my major.

On top of working on this amazing project, I got to meet so many interesting people, people my age, older, and sometimes even younger. People who created their own startups and people who were working on very interesting things.

My teammates were genuinely the best. We had so much fun building. I loved how easygoing they were too. We did karaoke, talked about life, ate food together, and drove around the city.

There is no place like localhost:3000 (home, aka a hackathon).

Project demo: stillaliveby.design

• Elvya Ané