NatureNetwork
A gamified platform connecting people with environmental volunteering; winner at FirstYearHack 2024.
NatureNetwork showed that an environmental volunteering problem could be made approachable through matching, progression, and a team build that reached a winning demo.
The situation.
At KCL Tech’s FirstYearHack 2024, the team started with a practical problem: people interested in environmental action can still struggle to find suitable local opportunities. NatureNetwork proposed a space for organisations to post volunteering work and for participants to discover relevant opportunities.
The concept did not stop at a directory. It paired tags and preferences with points, badges, and regional, country, and global leaderboards to test whether recognition could make volunteering feel more discoverable and sustained.
What I did.
I was the team’s full-stack developer, working from backend to frontend in the MERN stack. My own post credits Darren Weston on the pitch deck and badges, Jennifer Ikin on the user journey, pitch and wireframes, and Mark Tran on backend design and data engineering.
I also helped lead the four-person build. The award belongs to the team’s submission, not to one person’s implementation, and the case study keeps that distinction explicit.
How the work unfolded.
Connected opportunity discovery and publishing
Built around tailored volunteer opportunities alongside the ability for users to post their own, so the product could serve both seekers and organisers.
Added progression carefully
Used points, badges, profiles, and multiple leaderboard scopes to give completed volunteering visible acknowledgement.
Integrated a full-stack prototype
Used MongoDB, Express, React, and Node.js to turn the team’s concept into a demo under the event deadline.
What happened.
NatureNetwork won FirstYearHack 2024, taking the team's environmental volunteering concept from a shared problem to a complete judged demo.
The lasting outcome was an early, concrete example of combining a social problem with a motivating product loop in a collaborative build.
What I learned.
Gamification needs a meaningful underlying action
Points and badges make more sense when they acknowledge a real contribution instead of manufacturing engagement.
Team credit is product context
The pitch, journey, data model, and build were interdependent; naming those contributions is more accurate than flattening them into a solo story.
A strong demo makes the whole idea coherent
The win came from connecting the problem, user journey, product loop, technical build, and pitch into one understandable submission.
Related links.
Repositories, demos, event pages, posts, and other places connected to this project.
- NatureNetwork repositoryThe project repository identifies NatureNetwork as the winning FirstYearHack 2024 submission and includes the pitch and app showcase.
- Waseef’s FirstYearHack 2024 reflectionNatureNetwork's team roles, technology stack, product idea, and win.
- Waseef’s CVLists NatureNetwork as the winning FirstYearHack 2024 submission.