“WoCo & Co.,” shorthand for Women Who Code, has focused its Technovation project on spreading positivity at Andover. The team developed an app called “PraisePop” which promotes kindness and inclusivity through an anonymous compliment platform.
Inspired by the Andover community’s recent trends to promote positivity, WoCo & Co. decided their Technovation project could keep the kindness going for the good of the campus’ attitude.
“We were thinking of PA Compliments on Facebook and how the positivity on campus was featured in that , but it was still anonymous, so people felt free to post things,” said Moe Sunami ’17, a member of WoCo & Co.
The team members include Jenny Huang ’16, Qiqi Ren ’15, Sloane Sambuco ’16 and Sunami.
While sifting through the 200 responses they received from a series of potential user surveys, WoCo & Co. quickly realized Andover’s dire need for a better, happier atmosphere. Many of the respondents said that while they appreciate compliments and positivity, they are simply too busy to be positive on campus.
PraisePop operates on a completely traceable system, allowing users to post compliments about other community members to a single campus-wide feed and also chime in on posts they like with up-votes and comments. In the spirit of inclusivity, the app also prompts users to write posts about community members at random, allowing everyone the chance to reach out to everyone.
To ensure accountability, registration is limited to Andover email addresses; every post, albeit anonymous to the community, can be easily traced back to the original poster if it is deemed offensive or negatively-spirited.
“Technovation is challenging because it asks teams to combine so many different skills. You need to be creative, come up with a compelling idea and design, be a proficient coder, devise a business plan with goals to maximize profits and market size, and be able to bring it all together into an application that solves a pressing issue in your community,” said Sambuco.
