If there has been one certainty over this past, yet turbulent year, it’s that having a strong online and virtual presence is more important than ever. Much of our regular activity has moved online as everyone works to maintain physical distance due to health restrictions.

However, that doesn’t mean that the social ties that bind people together need to become distant as well. That was part of the motivation behind the recent hackathon the Velo team held in cooperation with Devpost.

The Physically Apart, Virtually Connected hackathon challenged participants to create solutions that can virtually connect people using Velo. The Velo Blog profiled the winners previously, and this post dives deeper into the first place winner - Virtual Food Bank, by Quentin Plomteux.

Quentin is currently seeking partners to further develop the Virtual Food Bank project in order to help communities in need. Contact him at code.enhancement.studio so you can get the virtual foodbank in your community.

An experienced developer and as a longtime Wix user, Quentin is also a member of the Velo Masters group; a community of Velo developers who help support the community. He has created a technical post to walk other users through the different technologies and Wix features he used to create his hackathon submission.

We spoke to Quentin about the project and what inspired him, as well as what led him to Velo and what his experience with the platform has been like.

Your Devpost Hackathon submission was a virtual foodbank. What was your inspiration?

“The idea came about because, first and foremost, I was drawn to the idea of the hackathon as a challenge and way to spotlight my skills. In addition, I wanted to use as many different Wix tools as possible, which was one of the requirements of the contest.

“So I was thinking about different Wix features such as Bookings and Stores, and it led me to think about a friend of mine volunteering for the Red Cross in my country. They have encountered a problem where they had to close down their local food bank because of COVID restrictions. They have been relying on phone calls and spreadsheets to prepare food packages for those in need.

“As a developer, I thought ‘there is a better way. People should be able to do this online.’ So that led me to create an online platform for people to shop using social credit, which is what many food banks collect in exchange for food."

Walk us through the project. What were some challenges you faced?

“In a bit more detail, the user first needs to book an appointment with a social worker to review personal details and what kind of support they are eligible for. At the end of the meeting, the social worker can award aid based on whatever criteria they set.

“Users are awarded credit to be used in the foodbank. So, one of my challenges was finding a way to allow users to spend more in the foodbank than what they had in credit. Let’s say a user has 50 Euro in credit, but wants to spend 60. So I needed a way to let people spend the difference.

“At first, I thought about building something myself with Wix Payments or another solution, but then I looked through the documentation and discovered that Wix already has that feature built-in with Wix Coupons. So the trick there was taking each order, and updating the coupon the user has in the system. Every time someone buys something, I can reduce the coupon, and then it resets every week to its initial value based on the amount of credit and aid the individual is supposed to receive.”

Tell us a bit about your background as a developer and how you first discovered Wix and Velo?

“I’m a full-stack JavaScript developer. I started coding five years ago, and started working at a big data company, where I developed web applications for the data science team.

“About three years ago I started to freelance, working as a web designer. I needed something to help me quickly build websites for my clients with entry-level budgets - an easy solution that would let me start working for those clients, and I looked naturally to Wix. As a platform, Wix is very easy for my clients to use, and it allows me to quickly produce a simple website for them.

"After working on Wix for some time, I discovered Velo and saw that it was quite interesting because it has a lot of capabilities. Little by little, I saw users making requests, ‘can someone help code this for me, or can someone customize that.’ So it helped me realize the potential for the whole platform.

“Over just a few weeks, I received more and more requests for Velo projects to the point that it became my full-time activity. Now I’m working full time with designers and project stakeholders to develop their idea on Wix with Velo.”

What led you to become a Velo master?

“I wanted to quickly learn the platform, and engage with the community. So when I saw questions about Velo, I saw that as an opportunity to learn the answer myself and then share that with other people in the community. Ultimately, I became more and more engaged and that led me to the Velo Masters group.”

What was the transition like from more traditional tools to Velo? What drew you to Velo and what do you like most about it?

“The transition to Velo was challenging at first. Unlike other platforms you don’t have access to the CSS underneath, or HTML, etc. So for a professional developer, it can be difficult and it took time and effort to learn the platform, develop projects, and understand what’s possible. However, I realized that for my clients, being able to change the design of their own website on their own, very easily, is the most powerful thing.

“Now, I don’t have to do basic maintenance like changing the text, changing the color, etc. My clients can do that on their own without needing my help and that frees up my time to focus on coding rather than tweaking the design.

“Beyond that, it allows clients to build their own mock-up, without using a third party tool. Using just drag and drop, they can design the interface they want, and then I can code the interface they produced. This makes it much easier for me to collaborate with clients.”

Make sure to take a look at Quentin’s winning submission. What would create to help us all virtually connect. Sign-up for Velo so you can find out.