AngelHack Singapore 2017
Best Use of Data and APIs, 17 June 2017
Captain Salvage is a chatbot to promote recycling. It is bundled with an incentive system to gamify recycling.
Recycling is not very prevalent in Singapore. This is because of the lack of information of recycling bins, and the inconvenience that the general population faces when they are asked to do recycling.
My solution was to develop a facebook chatbot that allows users to take pictures of recycle bins, and populate the based on the geo coordinates as submitted by the user. Other users would then be able to search for recycle bins around them, which makes it easier to locate recycle bins.
This was developed in python, and interfaced with the facebook chat APIs. Unfortunately, as facebook has since changed their API system, the code no longer works.
Also, an incentive and rewards system was also created alongside the chatbot. Points would be earned when a user recycles their recyclables, which can then be exchanged for perks and coupons.
The repository can be viewed here
Furthermore, the idea was developed further beyond the hackathon. It was subsequently deployed as a telegram chatbot. However, it has since been taken offline as of November 2017.