CAREitable is an Android app that makes it super easy for you to make cash & non-cash donations from the convenience of your home. With CAREitable, you can easily donate clothes, books, and other household goods to those in need, and bring smiles to their faces. Your donations will be visible to all the local NGOs like orphanages, old age homes, etc., andthese NGOs or needy individuals can directly contact you to schedule a pickup.

CAREitable also features a charity section where users can donate cash to registered charitable organizations. It also has a AI Chatbot called CAREtaker that provides real-time suggestions and answers common questions about charitable activities and donations

• Location-specific donations: Users can post donation ads specific to their location, offering a wide range of items to local NGOs and individuals in need. These ads are visible to users within the specified location, creating a targeted and impactful donation experience.

• Charity enlistment for organizations: Charitable organizations can enlist themselves in the app, providing detailed information about their mission and work. Users can browse and choose their preferred charity to donate cash directly online, promoting transparency and enabling direct support to trusted organizations.

• CAREtaker chatbot: Our intelligent chatbot, CAREtaker, is purpose-built to address the challenges of the app's problem statement. It dynamically suggests donations and charities from our comprehensive database, taking into account user preferences and needs. Additionally, the chatbot assists users by answering common questions related to charity and donations, providing a seamless and interactive experience.

• Verified account system: We prioritize the authenticity and trustworthiness of our platform by implementing a verified account system. This ensures that users can donate and receive donations with confidence, fostering a secure and reliable donation ecosystem.

• Optional delivery service for NGOs: To facilitate the transfer of donation items, we offer an optional delivery service. NGOs can opt for this service, which calculates a fair price based on the distance between the donor and the NGO's location. This feature streamlines the logistics process and ensures that donations reach their intended recipients efficiently (under developement)

• Check out our Demonstration Video to see how CAREitable works.

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• To install the app, download the APK File and install it on your Android device.

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• Android Studio: The Android app is built using Android Studio, which provides a comprehensive integrated development environment (IDE) for Android application development.

• Firebase: CAREitable utilizes Firebase, a powerful and scalable platform provided by Google, for various backend services.

• Cloud Firestore: Firestore is used as the database to store and retrieve user data, donation posts, and other relevant information.

• Firebase Authentication: This service is used for user registration, login, and authentication, ensuring secure and seamless user verification.

• Firebase Storage: Firebase Storage is used to store media files such as images associated with donation posts.

• Google Maps API: The Google Maps API is integrated to provide location-specific functionalities, such as displaying donation ads based on user location and calculating distances for the optional delivery service.

• OpenAI GPT-3.5 Turbo: The CAREtaker chatbot leverages the powerful GPT-3.5 Turbo model from OpenAI for intelligent conversations and dynamic suggestions related to donations and charities.

• The app is designed following Google's Material Design Guidelines and practices. Various Material components are used throughout the app.

• Implementing a Paid Delivery Service: Introducing an option for organizations to offer paid delivery services for donated items would provide a convenient and reliable way to transport items from donors to NGOs or organizations. This feature would further streamline the donation process and increase the efficiency of delivering donated goods.

• Improving the Chatbot Experience: We plan to enhance our AI chatbot, CAREtaker, by giving it access to more data, including user data. This will enable the chatbot to provide more accurate and personalized insights, recommendations, and support to users. By leveraging user data, the chatbot can better understand user preferences and tailor its responses accordingly.

• Implementing Global Coverage: Expanding our app's reach to every country, state, and city would enable users from around the world to access and benefit from our platform. This global expansion would help us connect a larger audience with charitable causes and organizations, fostering a global community of donors.

• Language Translations: Adding language translation capabilities to our app would ensure that users from different linguistic backgrounds can easily navigate and interact with the platform. This feature would remove language barriers and make our solution more accessible and inclusive.

• Enhanced User Verification: Implementing a more robust user registration process, such as linking national identity verification, would help reduce fraud and spam donation ads. This additional layer of verification would ensure that the platform maintains a trusted environment for donors and organizations.

• Smart Categories that will give more personalized fields to be filled by the donor according to the category. For example, for food items, fields like expiry date, type. Size and gender for clothes, etc.

• Image Recognition: We can use machine learning to recognize the items that users are donating by analyzing the images uploaded by users. This can be done by using various image recognition APIs and libraries such as TensorFlow and Google Cloud Vision API. This can help in improving the accuracy of the donated item's category and description.

• Fraud Detection: Machine learning can be used to detect fraudulent donations by analyzing user behavior patterns and other data. By identifying and blocking fraudulent donations, we can ensure the transparency and authenticity of the platform.

• Natural Language Processing: We can use Natural Language Processing (NLP) to understand the user's descriptions of donated items better. This can help in categorizing and sorting items more accurately, improving the search feature, and enhancing the overall user experience.

To use CAREitable, follow these steps:

1. Clone the repository to your local machine using git: git clone https://github.com/UtkarshSingh5474/CAREitable-Solution_Challenge.git

2. Open Android Studio and select "Open an existing Android Studio project". Navigate to the cloned repository directory and select it to open the project.

3. Wait for the project to build and sync all dependencies.

4. Connect your Android device to your computer and enable USB debugging on the device.

5. In Android Studio, click on the "Run" button to run the app on your device.

6. Once the app is installed and running, create an account using your email and password.

7. To donate an item, click on the "Donate" button on the home screen, and fill in the details about the item you want to donate.

8. Once you submit the item for donation, it will be visible to all the local NGOs, and the NGO owner can directly contact you and schedule a pickup.

That's it! You can now start donating items to those in need through CAREitable.

Thank you for using CAREitable!