How HelpNearby started
November 2025. I was scrolling TikTok in my bedroom in Prokopyevsk, Siberia. A video showed Yale Humanitarian Research Lab satellite images of El-Fasher, Sudan. Red patches on the ground. I thought they were cattle from space. They weren't — they were blood from killed people, visible from orbit.
I closed the phone. Did nothing.
The Discord moment
February 2026. I was looking for English speakers to play GTA 5. Random Discord interaction. Someone sent me the Discord mascot sticker. I asked "who r u?" He said "same question." Turned out he was half Sudanese, half Russian, fled Sudan to Egypt when the war got bad.
That's when it connected in my head.
Building HelpNearby
- April 16, 2026 — started Webflow prototype
- May 12 — submitted to SDG Submit competition. Rejected.
- May 15 — almost gave up. Sent my Sudanese friend the link anyway, no expectations. He replied: "I was just talking with my friend in Sudan and he said it's working great."
- May 17 — rebuilt seriously on Next.js.
His friend was using my buggy prototype in an active war zone.
What it is now
help-nearby.org — multilingual humanitarian platform helping people in crisis find free emergency assistance.
- 114+ verified organizations across 5 countries (Russia, Kazakhstan, Sudan, UAE, Belarus)
- 7 languages including Arabic with RTL support
- Lite mode under 200KB for slow connections in conflict zones
- UN OCHA databases integrated (HDX, GDHO)
Tech stack
- Next.js 16 + TypeScript
- Supabase (PostgreSQL) for verified directory
- Tailwind CSS for styling
- Leaflet + react-leaflet for maps
- OpenStreetMap + Overpass API for live POI search
- Nominatim for geocoding
- OSRM for routing
- Groq (Llama 3.3 70B) for AI chat assistance
- PostHog for analytics
- Vercel for hosting
- Playwright for E2E tests (14 passing)
Status
- Live: help-nearby.org
- GitHub: github.com/pizenkov13-boop/Help-Nearby
- MIT licensed
- Submitting to Zayed Sustainability Prize 2027 (Global High Schools category, deadline June 22)
- Revenue: $0. Not monetized yet.
Origin context
I'm 15. Self-taught. From Prokopyevsk — a small industrial city in Siberia where most people work in coal mines or factories. Family income around $30K/year. No bootcamps, no tutors, no CS prep. Just Cursor + Claude + a lot of debugging.
HelpNearby exists because someone in a war zone shouldn't need a VPN, paywalls, or scattered NGO websites to find a shelter.
Open questions
- Best practices for low-bandwidth web apps in conflict zones?
- Anyone built humanitarian tech with verified data partnerships?
- Migration considerations from Vercel for global reach?
Feedback welcome.
Top comments (0)