Seek refuge, navigate life, and integrate smoothly in your host country with knowledgeable local friends who are eager to help.

To generate ideas, I searched current technology solutions and apps to common Ukrainian needs.

Below is a list that I found of common apps that exist in the marketplace. I would use these apps so that my team and I could come up with our own solutions.

For competitor analysis, I researched current refugee volunteer programs in the U.S. and Europe to see how they were structured. You can see a select few listed below (scrollable).

I found that there were refugee volunteer programs offered by nonprofits, local cities and governments, and churches, which often had strict and lengthy volunteer requirements. There were also peer-to-peer Facebook groups and apps for individual services such as translation. However, there were no existing mobile apps specifically for peer-to-peer comprehensive refugee partnerships— giving us room to move into this space and differentiate.

We created a user persona for a Ukrainian woman refugee with children to help us understand her perspective, needs, goals, and frustrations.

I taught a marketing student on our team how to make a user persona, and she drafted a copy. I made edits and created the final version below.

We made low-fidelity wireframes.

While I made the sketch, my teammate made a Lofi wireframe.

We discussed our sketches and Lofi wireframes and combined our ideas for the flow in our high-fidelity wireframes.

In our overall solution, I envisioned there would be 2 apps to download- one for refugees and one for volunteers. For the purpose of the hackathon, we just showed the flows from the Refugee app.

Based on my sketches and the Lofi wireframes, my 2 teammates made high-fidelity wireframes shown below. I reviewed the wireframes throughout the process and gave direction and suggestions for edits.

We turned our wireframes into an interactive prototype.

Our developer worked on the initial version of the code for our app.

One challenge that we faced was a shortage of developers- we only had one developer on our team, and there was no mobile specialists. However, he was able to make an initial version of the code for the app.

I reviewed my competitive analysis to determine several points that make Refugee Buddies unique in the market.

• There are no known mobile apps specifically for peer-to-peer refugee mentorships/partnerships

• Churches, nonprofits, and local cities offer volunteer programs with stringent requirements for both registration and the mentorship process. A way that Refugee Buddies would differentiate is by offering a more informal way that any local who registers through the app and verifies his/her profile can become a Buddy for a Ukrainian refugee.

• Refugee Buddies is easier to access on mobile phones, which is more accessible for refugees than desktop applications

• While existing apps provide individual services such as translation, Refugee Buddies provides comprehensive services for the most common areas of help that refugees need. Refugees can even message multiple people for assistance with different services.

• Refugees can search and filter potential Buddies for specific areas of specialty.

I made an implementation plan for the app. We would launch in Warsaw, and then iterate and expand across Poland (where currently 50% of refugees are fleeing), then worldwide.

I developed a pitch presentation in the last few hours of our hackathon that explained our business case and included a tech demo. You can view the pitch deck here.

Scroll to the top of the page to view a video of the pitch presentation.

I presented a recorded pitch demo at the Hackathon and received great feedback and a certificate.