shac.ai - Shared Housing & Cardano

[IMPACT]

Shared housing can be a viable option for people that face housing insecurities. And while we want to assist in providing homes for the most vulnerable, we focus on a more financially stable user base. We are creating an AAMFH (almost automated marketplace for housing) on Cardano.

The main tenant of a housing unit can create a listing, providing info about themself, the home, and the available room(s).

Room-seeking users also have a tenant profile and needs, preferences, dislikes, and deal breakers.

Unlike the craigslists, users do not have to find each other, but high quality matches (based on self-reported data) are promptly presented to the room-seekers to take action to rent a room.

Rent payments are - of course - made on Cardano using ADA for now, but hopefully with Djed soon.

We hope that shac.ai will be especially useful for digital nomads.

To ease frequent subletting, we will build a reputation system that uses blockchain data from the temporary tenants, while building out a more traditional rating system to identify trustworthiness of main tenants.

In the case of disputes, we provide an integration into mediation services through mediators.ai (launch in Q2 2022) and may even provide proactive communication training through ombuds.ai.

With this proposal, we are addressing this guiding question:

• What needs do users of Cardano have that could be solved by new applications?

Once Djed is integrated into the dapp, we believe that the implemented solution will attract new users to shac.ai and Cardano.

This proposal integrates with other Project Catalyst proposals: adatar.me (proposal: Gravatar for ADA Wallets) and mediators.ai (launch in Q2 2022, proposal: Win-Win Dispute Resolution).

No risk as the team has built a more complex shared housing application before. For main adoption, Djed should be ready.

[FEASIBILITY]

August 2022:

• Deliverable: More versatile Tenant Standard data model (if funded) or simple tenant data model only for this proposal
• Start of UX work
• Start of Visual Identity for shac.ai

September 2022:

• Deliverable: Visual Identity for shac.ai

October 2022:

• Start of software development

November 2022:

• Deliverable: UX flow finalized

February 2023:

• Deliverable: shac.ai launch
• Start of “no-cost” marketing campaign

• Domain cost for shac.ai 2 years: $132
• Google Workspaces 5 users for 1st year: $720
• UX design $4k/mo, 4 months: $16,000
• Frontend/graphic design $4k/mo, 4 months: $16,000
• 3 Frontend devs $3,200/mo, 5 months: $48,000
• 2 Plutus devs $4,000/mo, 3 months: $24,000
• 2 Fullstack devs $5,000/mo, 5 months: $50,000
• Project Management $4,000/mo, 7 months: $28,000
• Server costs for 1st year: $5,663

Matthias Sieber, Eli Selkin, David Bradley and Tori Breitling designed, developed, and maintained a shared housing application (named AROYO) and accompanying questionnaire app for a large housing service provider (LA Family Housing) in 2020 through 2021.

While hundreds of people that were facing housing insecurities found suitable shared housing with the help of our apps in the first year, we identified many unnecessary bottlenecks in the processes imposed by our partner. The team is excited to build a more impactful and flexible solution that addresses the global housing crisis from different angles. The team is supported in project management, development, and establishing government connections where appropriate by additional members of Loxe Inc. Some of the team members are listed below. We reserve the right to make adjustments in the team configuration at any time.

Matthias Sieber

• Lead Engineer for AROYO - a shared housing project in 2020/2021
• Professional Software Engineer for over 20 years
• Recommendation Engine Specialist
• Plutus and Prism Pioneer
• CEO Loxe Inc.

Eli Selkin

• Sr. Software Engineer for AROYO - a shared housing project in 2020/2021
• Professional Software Engineer for over 10 years
• MS in Computer Science, specializing in Machine Learning
• Plutus and Prism Pioneer
• CTO Loxe Inc.

David Bradley

• Frontend Engineer for AROYO - a shared housing project in 2020/2021
• Professional Software Engineer for 3 years
• Specializes in React development using Tailwind CSS

Tori Breitling

• UX designer for AROYO - a shared housing project in 2021
• Product/UX designer for over 20 years

Victor Corcino

• Co-creator of AIM Community Tools (CA/vCA Tools, Voter Tool)
• Experienced Project Manager
• MSc Specialization in Data Science, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
• Plutus and Prism Pioneer
• COO Loxe Inc.

Ganesh N.

• Professional Software Engineer for over 8 years
• Plutus and Prism Pioneer
• Gimbalabs PPBL Team Member
• BTech in Electronics and Communication Engineering
• Has lead development of large scale applications

Ambassador Steve Rhodes

• US Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Zimbabwe
• Professor of Negotiation, Conflict Resolution and Peace Building

[AUDITABILITY]

We will measure the progress of this project for community auditability based on our milestones. Internally, we assess our progress formally weekly with retrospectives and sprint planning.

A successful implementation of the project has a positive impact on abating the housing crisis.

By the end of 2023, shac.ai will have matched hundreds of users across all continents.

This proposal is an entirely new proposal.

SDG Rating

Sustainable cities and communities.