Eco-products Promoting APP ("Eco-Boost")

The APP can be a place that provides introductions and locations of all eco-brands available in the markets (China, India)

Features - Store-locator and introductions of sustainable brands Online.

The application provides the Store location. Surplus it also complete information regarding:-

1. Name of the store

2. All side view store photo

3. Brief ( Product category) + introduction to the brands (design ideas, history)

4. Advertisements ( for sellers new product launch and new store opening).

The prototype of this APP can be created using the site recommended by MIT SolvED workshop. For a real APP, we can learn to use QtCreator to write the code or WIndows VisuaStudio. This APP will be able to be download on remote devices like phones.

We are trying to solve the problem of lack of accessibility to sustainable shops in Beijing and Gujarat, meaning that customers don't know where to locate offline sustainable shops. The scale of this problem is pretty wide since it covers almost all age groups that have the ability and will to shop, specifically, people that want to promote sustainable products. Also, many customers are not aware of the manufacturing process and materials that sustainable brands use. About 61% of people in the Europe would like to know about the manufacture of sustainable products. If the customers do not know the process that sustainable products are created, it is unlikely for them to remain uninterested in buying those products since they normally have higher prices than ordinary products. Although some brands are sustainable, without a place telling customers the information, sustainable brands could be ignored. As they don't know the locations of the stores, it makes people even more impossible to access to those shops and promote sustainability in industries. This causes fast fashion and unsustainable products that are easy to access becoming more and more popular, taking up 10% of the global carbon emission. The crisis of climate change won't end if people are not aware of shopping sustainable products.

Eco-boost serves the people using the internet through their webportal by providing clear and detailed information about the eco stores and provides a clear vision of the desired eco store at anywhere, anytime to avoid useless store visiting. The specific audience that we serve is customers, especially female, who are interested in buying sustainable products in China and Gujarat. Since the audience don't know what are some sustainable brands near them and where to access these brands, it is unlikely for them to go on the websites of sustainable brands and understand the ideas behind the designs. This way, potential customers of sustainable products are undeserved at this point.

We answer these related questions about sustainable stores for customers:

>How store is good to visit?

>How products (at store) are helpful to me?

>Where are the sustainable stores near my place?

>Which time we can visit? Etc.

The website tries to provide clarity for the shopping. It provides advantages like quick store choice, reduce in Carbon foot print, increase in the standard of living,and important "reliability". Also, potential customers of sustainable goods can have access to the physical shops near their places. Sustainability in fashion and other good industries can be promoted too since they can gain more customers.

There are several things that we have been through to know about the needs of the population.

First, I have contacted two sustainable brands in China, one produces finished products and the other produces material. Both of them agree that sustainable industries are still niche to most local customers. Only specialized people such as those who work for energy or technology companies have a basic understanding regarding sustainable industries. People in Shanghai are more aware of this but people in Beijing have low awareness regarding this industry. This tells us from the producers' perspective that many people are not aware of their products and sustainability still hasn't been part of people's life.

Second, we have conducted a survey on a small scale. About 25 out of 30 people don't know sustainable brands' locations in Beijing or they never shopped at sustainable stores before. But more than 70% of them are willing to know and shop in sustainable stores if they have access to. This shows that there is a need of awareness in sustainable brands in the market.

We are on the concept phase because what we have right now is only a basic idea of the problem and solution that we intend to create. We are preparing material and knowledge to start the prototype phase because both of our team members are not familiar with APP creation, so we need to explore it first before we start the actual prototyping.

• Our key component of technology is internet, e.g. QtCreator.
• We have decided to build an application.
• How it works :-
• You need to install the Eco boost application.
• First appears the introduction page where Logo of our app comes up
• Signup/Login
• You will be able to explore Eco-friendly products stores.[ For eg.Mama earth, Patanjali etc.]
• One can understand the store location and get clear,direct information about their products without visiting their store.
• Surplus things like stores phone number, opening closing timings,Total No. of their customers visited specific store, Informative 360 degree surround photo of the stores.

Our solution currently serves no one because the APP is not yet published officially onto the APP stores.Therefore people cannot install and use the APP yet. In one year, after the APP has been published and advertised, I am expecting at least 2000 users that are mostly likely going to be residents of Beijing,and in India.

As it will serve to the world as a family we have selected all age groups all kind of people. Because if the people buy local goods the economy of the country gets strengthened and harmony(SAMP in Gujarati language) gets increased so Employment will increase and serves equally from top to bottom class(i.e wealth) of the Society.

Impact goals for next year:
1. We can reach 2000 and more downloads of our APP.
2. Sustainable stores can have more customers and awareness (gain 1000 followers on social media)

(We plan to achieve these two goals by first creating and publishing the APP onto the APP stores. We can also advertise the APP through different media such as posters in shopping malls, posts in Xiao Hong Shu (famous social media platform in China), and we can find celebrities to help advertise if we have the budget to do so. We also need to refine the APP along the way to make sure that it suits the needs of the users.)

We are going to measure our goal by seeing the number of downloads from the backstage. Also, we can see the progress by investigating how many more customers or popularity do the sustainable brands gain starting from the time that their information can be accessed on our APP. Since our solution is to promote sustainability in the world, we are also expecting to see more companies shifting their views and start turning more in to sustainability and May We all of us can achieve goals of UN together.

• Communication challenge- Compelling the Eco-stores to join with us with the motive of increasing their sales and their products footprint.
  
• "New challenge"- Real time store product tracking (If the product is available as for current time or not).
• In starting, making the APP is a hard task to do because we have to hire someone that is experienced in APP making and we will learn new things through providing the software Engineer his fees from the grant recieved by the MIT(2021-22).
  
• We need to decide whether we are going to do the design that is exciting.
  
• Deep research on the U.I & U.X for creatively making the application making.
• It is a time taking process to finally launch the application.

We are a fairly small team because only two of the original members were able to make it til now.

        In our group, Mico Zhang is a high school student in Beijing, who knows the city and people here well, that can be very helpful since the solution we are going to create is in Beijing. Mico is an activist in sustainable fashion and attended many workshops held by sustainable brands or projects such as Adidas and Stella McCartney, which is related to the field that we are working on.With a desire of serving mother earth She took up this idea.

     Rohan (Facilatator) is from India. A Product deign student. Follows Hindu religion and BAPS organization youth. Since he is senior to Mico, he provides some insightful and mature ideas to the group to make sure that everything is practical and on the right path. He also gives international perspectives so that the project is comprehensive and appropriate world wide.

No,We haven't partnered with any organization as of now.

But we have contacted some sustainable brands in China such as HowBottle and Fabric & Design.

Our group is qualified for this prize because of two things. First, team member Mico is an environmental activist who frequently participate in activities in school and out school that are related to sustainability and environmentalism. In school, she organizes a club that initiate projects in school that help solve the problem of waste recycling and waste donation to sustainable industries. Besides the experiences of our team member, this project that we have thought of to promote sustainable industries in Beijing could change the life of citizens here. As they are provided with access towards sustainable shops, more people would be aware of sustainability in goods production. We aim to enhance sustainability from a small sector of providing access to the people in our community to larger goals of enhancing sustainability of the city. Therefore, we are qualified for this prize.