A year after Toronto-based StableHacks was named the winner of last year’s Elevate hackathon, the company has launched its flagship product, TrustD.space, a platform designed to facilitate in-person connection, skill-sharing, and knowledge-sharing between communities and neighbours.
“In today’s age of addictive mobile apps and the sheer business of modern city life, we hardly even know our neighbours anymore.”
– Shabs Badshah
TrustD.space allows communities to post events and items to give away or lend, share knowledge and skill opportunities, and give advice to members. The platform is meant to help admins and members build sustainable and vibrant communities. It also allows members to earn points for sharing with their community, that are redeemable at local vendors for discounts. On StableHack’s one-year Elevate hackathon anniversary, the company has launched a ‘three-month free’ offer to interested clients.
“We wanted to fix human connections, since community is very important to us and is at the heart of what we do here,” StableHacks founder Shabs Badshah told BetaKit. “We saw the need to connect people locally because in today’s age of addictive mobile apps and the sheer business of modern city life, we hardly even know our neighbours anymore.”
The startup faced a long road after winning last year’s hackathon. The initial challenge, Badsha said, was to find the right niche to launch TrustD.space. Due to the flexibility of the platform, it meant the service could be used to build community in a variety of contexts. StableHacks is currently piloting the platform with clients in co-working, innovation, student, and residential spaces.
“It’s been quite an experience from winning to the actual launch,” Badshah told Betakit. “When we won, we realized that there was a real desire for our community-building platform, and we decided to deliver a working product from just a hackathon idea.”
Another challenge for the StableHacks team has been recruiting admins, who are used to using solutions like Facebook groups, Slack, and email. This tends to make them more hesitant to try out a new platform, Badshah said, which is why the company is launching its offering now.
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StableHacks’ concept was built off the team’s own experience living in high-rise buildings, and working within Ryerson’s DMZ. They knew how difficult it could be to make in-person connections with other residents, even though they may live or work nearby.
In the startup, accelerator, and coworking space, Badshah wants the platform to be the go-to community hub for members, space owners, and external partners, such as mentors, technical sponsors, and partners – to connect with each other seamlessly.
“We probed deeper into why we did not know our neighbours and coworkers better, and what obstacles were preventing us from reaching out,” Badshah told BetaKit. “TrustD thus acts as the community portal for innovation spaces to access events, information, deals, and even ride-sharing. Different roles, such as members, admins, sponsors, and mentors, contribute to it, thus allowing community resources to build up over time.”
Elevate Tech Jam hackathon will take place this year from September 20 to 22 at the Design Exchange in Toronto.
Image courtesy Elevate