AirToTree Platform
We created a web platform that enables carbon offset buyers (mostly companies) to attain high-integrity carbon offsets from an aggregated pool of nature-based carbon dioxide removal projects. Project owners, such as foresters and farmers, can enlist their projects on the AirToTree platform. Buyers can view the projects, but do not buy into a project directly; they buy into a set of carbon removal units from the overall pool. This is done to enable foresters and farmers to have a new source of income and create an easy and affordable way for companies to offset their carbon emissions.
The client was Attila Turos. He started the company on his own, and it is still in the start-up phase. The communication was done through biweekly meetings, where the client was updated on the progress.
Our team consisted of 3 computer science & economics and 3 computer science & math students; Chris Vijn, Diego Sourbag, Reinier Bos, Tiemen IJkema, Bram Jansen and Sam Testers. Reinier was Scrum master during the project and Tiemen was product owner. The computer science & economics did more work on the backend and hosting, while the computer science & math did more work on the frontend. We faced the challenges of managing expectations of the client and clear communication in the team. The client had more expectations than we could deliver in the time we had allotted for the project. While he had no experience with software development, he did provide us with a high level schema of what he wanted and brought on a senior software engineer and a senior UX designer to help support our work. While it was sometimes hard to align on the expectations it still worked out well in the end. Internal communication was also a challenge, as we all had busy schedules as students. We managed to make clear agreements with each other. We are most proud of the design of the homepage, and making sure it is hosted well, so that it is always available.