Eco Guru, an environmental application.

Over the last few decades, our environment has been becoming increasingly exposed to several threats and problems. We discussed, that to make an extensive change and impact on how we treat our planet, we would have to alter our habits and inspire others to do so through education and awareness, helping each other towards our collective mission to tranform ourselves into a healthier version of ourselves with a more sustainable lifestyle. This would encompass so many different aspects of our lifestyle. From spiritual to dietary, to physical well-being.

When I spent my 2008 Christmas holiday in the Amazon rainforest, I got to hang out with the locals in the village of Chino outside of our Tahuayo lodge, including the shaman. I was on an expedition to build a clinic to help locals heal from health-related complications they needed to take care of and didn't have the remedies for. I know there were many natural remedies to stop snake venom or suppress it, but a group of dentists needed to help locals take care of their teeth or other complex issues such as broken bones. The clinic has grown exponentially since the last time we were there. However, I understand that it is essential to maintain natural resources and methods of healing and combine our methods to come up with holistic treatments, training our minds to be able to self-heal, and self-heal faster. That is why shamans believe anything is poison and focus on herbal remedies that keep them connected to nature. We need nature to survive. I also believe that animals are there to navigate us when it comes to developing the need for these poisons and freeing ourselves of them to keep those in moderation to live better lives. But this is something I am trying to address in another project in my portfolio.

In this project, we investigated some of these issues. We brought a technical solution for people who want to alter their habits to learn how to adopt a more eco-friendly lifestyle. We evaluated a few environmental applications, interviewed potential users who have grown concerned about the Earth-harming impact of their lifestyles and shadowed them. At the same time, they used one of the competitor's applications. By asking them to rank environmental issues based on their severity, we discovered that global warming, overpopulation, and pollution were some of the most common problems at the top of the list. We also found that the public's consumerism and lack of motivation significantly contribute to these issues. We took the following product design process and tools:

Sketching Board, Photoshop, Illustrator, Proto.io, Mural, Survey Monkey