AidLink - Bridging NGO's and donors seamlessly to make donations simple
AidLink enables donors to contribute by simply sending an SMS to a designated number. An automated trigger retrieves their current GPS location and an integrated NLP engine categorizes the donation details which is used to notify related NGO's. The classified data is then displayed on a real‑time dashboard for efficient claim processing.
AidLink is an innovative donation management platform designed specifically for NGOs, enabling donors to share resources and contribute easily through a simple SMS. In our initial design, we explored using the WhatsApp Web API; however, external API restrictions forced us to pivot. By leveraging SMS—which is universally available on all mobile phones—donors can donate without any additional hassle or installation of third‑party apps.
When a donor sends an SMS to a designated number, an automated mobile app intercepts the message and immediately retrieves the donor’s current GPS location using native location services. This information, along with the donation details, is forwarded to a Node.js/Express backend that stores the data in a MongoDB database. An integrated Python-based NLP module (using libraries such as spaCy) processes the text to categorize donations (for example, classifying “2kg wheat” as Food). The categorized data is then displayed in real‑time on a React dashboard, where NGOs can view donation details, claim specific items, and update the status once collected.
we are using Kannel to collect donation messages via SMS