Matching Items (4)
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- Creators: Department of Psychology
- Member of: Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
Description
iWaandr is a travel platform that allows users to find and share unique experiences. It will be a website that users can find on the internet. Every user will be able to post their own experiences on the platform along with a description, important information, and a rating.
The problem we are trying to solve is that it still takes hours to search for and find unique non-touristy experiences around the world. At a time when people can use their smartphones to have a car show up to their doorstep in minutes, it is unacceptable that it still takes hours to find an non-touristy experience on the internet.
Our value proposition is that users will be able to be anywhere in the world and be able to find an authentic, non-touristy experience that interests them. iWaandr is the most complete experience discovery tool, providing the largest collection of unique and personal experiences around the world.
Our competition is the large incumbent travel and review companies like TripAdvisor and Airbnb. There are also less established competitors that see a similar gap in the market like Mapify and Cool Cousin. We also have niche competitors that are only focused on outdoor activities like AllTrails and Outbound Collective. Google and blogs would also be competitors because people search on Google for unique experiences.
Our innovation is that we are focusing on creating unique content while our competitors are focusing on new ways to display the same content. Our advantage isn’t in a feature we created because a company with more resources could easily copy it. In order to create unique and useful content, we had to figure out a way for users to intuitively and easily post an experience with as much relevant information as possible. This involved a lot of thought into our posting process. We believe our posting process allows users to consistently post unique and informative content.
The technology we are implementing is very similar to the FERN technology stack of Firebase as a database, ExpressJS and NodeJS as backend frameworks, and ReactJS as the front-end programming language. We chose this technology stack because it allows our platform to stay lean, and be efficient with data. This allows the platform to have increased performance and lower costs.
The problem we are trying to solve is that it still takes hours to search for and find unique non-touristy experiences around the world. At a time when people can use their smartphones to have a car show up to their doorstep in minutes, it is unacceptable that it still takes hours to find an non-touristy experience on the internet.
Our value proposition is that users will be able to be anywhere in the world and be able to find an authentic, non-touristy experience that interests them. iWaandr is the most complete experience discovery tool, providing the largest collection of unique and personal experiences around the world.
Our competition is the large incumbent travel and review companies like TripAdvisor and Airbnb. There are also less established competitors that see a similar gap in the market like Mapify and Cool Cousin. We also have niche competitors that are only focused on outdoor activities like AllTrails and Outbound Collective. Google and blogs would also be competitors because people search on Google for unique experiences.
Our innovation is that we are focusing on creating unique content while our competitors are focusing on new ways to display the same content. Our advantage isn’t in a feature we created because a company with more resources could easily copy it. In order to create unique and useful content, we had to figure out a way for users to intuitively and easily post an experience with as much relevant information as possible. This involved a lot of thought into our posting process. We believe our posting process allows users to consistently post unique and informative content.
The technology we are implementing is very similar to the FERN technology stack of Firebase as a database, ExpressJS and NodeJS as backend frameworks, and ReactJS as the front-end programming language. We chose this technology stack because it allows our platform to stay lean, and be efficient with data. This allows the platform to have increased performance and lower costs.
ContributorsChee, Christian Yoshiaki (Co-author) / Bingham, Joseph (Co-author) / Cho, Steve (Thesis director) / Witwer, Bob (Committee member) / Tech Entrepreneurship & Mgmt (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
As the daughter of Mexican parents, I was raised with family-centered values which conflict with the values of independence, freedom and individuality stressed in the United States. Being a minority has become part of my identity, thus influencing how I make decisions about finances and traveling. Minorities are faced with many more concern, like familial concerns and financial obligations which hinder their desire to attempt to travel (Salisbury, Paulsen, & Ernest, 2011). My main concerns were convincing my parents that traveling to Nicaragua and studying abroad in Greece and Italy would be beneficial to my college experience, along with financially being able to go through with each experience. The main purpose of my thesis is to share what it is like to be a minority faced with cultural and financial obstacles that make it difficult to travel and how the experience is shaped due to these obstacles.
ContributorsValtierra, Nancy Jazmin (Author) / Larson, Elizabeth (Thesis director) / Facinelli, Diane (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Graduate College (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
Sun Scenes is a website focused on summer travel. It is composed of a series of written sketches, all focused on unique locations, within several European cities. Photography is also a key component of the project, as all images were personally taken and edited. Sun Scenes invites viewers to follow along on these adventures, and hopefully, it inspires some of their own.
ContributorsSwenson, Hayley (Author) / Giner, Oscar (Thesis director) / Ellsworth, Matt (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor)
Created2023-05
Description
This thesis/creative project involved writing a collection of creative nonfiction essays and building a website to reflect on my experiences traveling through Spain in the summer of 2023, for both a study abroad program and on my own. There are a total of nine essays in this current collection, along with a tenth introductory essay. They reflect the chronological order of my travels to Madrid, Sevilla, Granada, Valencia, Barcelona, and Lisbon, concluding with an essay written about my return to Phoenix, Arizona. The goal of this project was to not only personally reflect on what I learned while in these various places, but also to share these experiences with a wider audience in the digital world. I plan to continue adding essays to this website, using it as a "living document" for my future travels, and as a place for further reflection.
ContributorsCordes, Olivia (Author) / Meloy, Elizabeth (Thesis director) / O'Flaherty, Katherine (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor)
Created2024-05