Let’s Rejoice (LR)- A dating app focused on connecting people of faith inside and outside of China

[grantshares-dapp[bot]]

Abstract

What would you like to do? Describe your project/idea in a few sentences. Please, be short and concise here! Brevity is key.

In an era of deteriorating China/Western relations and increasing fear of plague and pestilence, Let's Rejoice attempts to reverse the trends by providing a platform whereby individuals of faith can meet and socialize, with the goal of developing long-term friendships and relationships leading towards marriage. Payments within the system are prioritized for the NEO blockchain.

Proposal Information

Description

Relations between China and the West have deteriorated significantly in the past several years, with declining hopes of improving in the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, cross-border travel between the West and China has dropped to nearly zero, further adding to the misery and isolation between peoples and countries.

At the same time, the sudden end of China's "Zero-Covid" policy has resulted in Covid-19 infections sky-rocketing in many parts of China (including here in Beijing). With cases growing exponentially higher, people are frightened to leave their homes, much less go out to socialize. Despite the ending of mandatory testing and lockdowns, overnight, entire cities and provinces have become ghost towns. This forecasts ominously from an economic and social perspective, leaving a vacuum within which single Chinese can naturally meet and interact, develop relationships, much less marry and start families. In other words, they cannot adequately hope or plan for a future.

Layered within these existential challenges is a heavily under- served population- the single, Chinese, faith-based woman (and to a lesser degree, man). It is a fact that China boasts one of the largest Christian populations in the entire world, with over 100MM who profess the faith. With their house of worship selection limited to the official "3-Self" churches or registered, international churches (which broadly excludes locals without passports from attending), the channels within which local believers can meet others in order to date are in short supply. Within these houses of worship, the majority of attendees are single women who would prefer to marry other believers. Yet even prior to the pandemic, many of them could not find a suitable mate in China, because of the lack of available Chinese men who are of the same faith.

Outside of China, there is a large pool of believing men who would like to find a way to connect with these women for the purposes of long-term relationship or marriage, but with all of the barriers that have been erected the past few years, the likelihood of this occurring has declined significantly.

This app aims to develop a platform whereby those of Faith from within and outside of China can socialize and date, leading to the goal of marriage.

App Details

Typically, most paid dating apps will offer two tiers of services: a free membership and premium (paid) tier.

Free membership typically has the following attributes:

• Free profile setup
• Free browsing of other member profiles
• etc.

Premium membership typically has the following attributes:

• Full use of messaging
• Full use of video chat
• Additional photos/ information shared
• Find out who 'liked' you
• Etc.

This app’s revenue generating model will be slightly different. First off, we are non-profit, so our purpose is not to make money. The free version of LR will generally allow all of the app’s privileges, though a premium version will also provide 3rd party verification of profiles- i.e. verification through our networks of the legitimacy of the profile and person in question, as well as facilitation of introductions or conversations between members. (Since this app will mostly spread via word of mouth and personal networks, it is highly likely that someone in our network can vouch for a member).

In addition, a donation/tithing component will be made available (especially for those who successfully use the app to make real-life connection).

Users will have the option to pay/donate in in NEO/GAS ( as the preferred channel) or other mediums (as the non-preferred channel).

*For the record- a webapp of this type would not be considered to violate any Chinese laws, since as both parties are already self-selected as ‘religious’, as such, no proselytization is taking place between parties. It is simply a cross-cultural dating app focused on people of faith. (Note that Chinese law currently prohibits proselytization of religion by foreigners to non-foreigners).

**As the app gains traction, we can potentially improve the premium (paid) interaction experience by utilizing Augmented Reality /3D- sound capabilities (we have local partners who are specialized in these areas).

Motivation

Why are you requesting funding? Is there anything that triggered your interest and would like to share with us?

I am an ABC (American-Born Chinese) residing in Beijing/ Shandong for nearly 12 years. I have consistently attended a variety of different church services (including registered 3-self and international churches), and met my wife (from Dongbei东北) through one of the Chinese churches. Within these houses of worship, it becomes apparent that there is a large imbalance between eligible single women and eligible single men.

We both know dozens of single, eligible women who cannot find spouses. We also know many single, eligible people outside of China who have a heart for China (i.e. foreigners). Based on our preliminary market research efforts, we already contacted several of our friends about this app, and many have enthusiastically requested to sign up for it once it launches.

My wife and I both have a heart for helping these sisters (and in a few cases, brothers) who would like to meet and connect with other brothers and sisters from all countries of the world, specifically for long-term, serious, marriage-oriented relationships.

On the Western side, I was born and raised in Silicon Valley (Fremont, California). I can attest to the fact that in areas of high concentrations of engineering talent, there is simply going to be a much higher ratio of single men to single women. However, because of career considerations, these men cannot simply pick up and move to areas with higher numbers of available women.

In places like Silicon Valley, the problem is seemingly the opposite of China- the houses of worship are full of smart, dedicated men, but there is a dearth of single, attractive believing females to go around.

Lastly, the pandemic has created a situation where positive interaction has declined considerably between between China and the West. Hence, having an app that can help to break down these barriers of negativity can help to improve an increasingly concerning situation.

Goals

What are the main goals, and why? How would you bring value to the community?

1. In an era of declining China/West relationships and spreading disease, develop an app that will improve communication between China and the West at the individual, personal level

2. Assist under-served populations within and outside of China (singles of faith who desire long-term relationships, marriage)

3. Drive awareness and adoption of NEO/ GAS globally

4. Increase participation / engagement amongst the NEO and non-NEO communities

5. Have fun while doing all the above

Deliverables & Roadmap

Specify deliverables in detail, including the following info for each:

• Total Estimated Duration: 35 days
• Full-Time Equivalent (FTE): 1.5
• Total Budget: X 500 GAS (plus assistance on obtaining and migrating my NEO that is stuck on the N2 chain)

Also, provide a roadmap overview for the deliverables.

Roadmap

Overview:

App will launch as a web application, due to the difficulty of listing apps on China store. This also ensures that the app is easily accessible to anyone. If the app is blocked in China for some reason, it can easily be accessed with a VPN. After sufficient traction is gained, we will add a React Native- based app and find a way to list it in the Chinese app stores.

Front-end key technologies: ReactJS/HTML/CSS/MUI/ responsive

Back-end key technologies: GraphQL, Auth0, neow3j (Java) for NEO smart contract, Render for deployment

• Home page (2 days)
• Personal profile page-  (6-7 days)
  • Video recording/ upload option
  • Pictures
  • About (hobbies, education/career, personal testimony, likes/dislikes, background story, links, etc.)
• Browsing page (separation of male/females) (4-5 days)
  • A table feature may be used instead of a swipe left/right feature
  • Card format
  • Add a like feature
• GraphQL storage for user profile/ videos/ metadata (3-4 days)
• Authentication- Auth0/ Identity management (3 days)
• Real-time chat or messaging feature (3 days)
• WalletConnect integration (2-3 days)
• About page (1 day)
• Design a logo (1-2 days)
• Deployment/ Testing/ Responsiveness/ Final Configurations (5 days)
• Marketing- publicize app on Reddit, Twitter, FB, etc. (3 days)

Total days (~35)

• Features to possibly be added in the future (i.e. premium features)
  • Augmented Reality ‘experience/lens’ live interaction

Deliverables Verifiability

How would the community be able to verify that the promised deliverables (or milestones) were successfully achieved? For each deliverable/milestone, add supporting info on how it can be verified by the community.

1. Web app is successfully launched with features as described above

2. Marketing campaign is executed as emails are sent to communities in the US and abroad to attract users; publication is made in communities or forums of interest to our target audience; we message or 1-on-1 chat with our friends to join, (this would be a bit more difficult to verify as this will be done through our private networks, so not really a deliverable)

3. At least 15-30 new, real members join and create full profiles

Budget Plan

• What are the overall required resources (i.e., budget)?

• Provide reasons why the requested budget is a good fit for the proposal.

• How the budget would be used to achieve the project goal?

• 500 GAS plus assistance in obtaining and migrating my NEO that is still stuck on the N2 chain to the N3 chain (https://github.com/neo-project/neo/issues/195)

About You / Your Organization

• Individual/Entity Name: Rob Liou/ Cissy (Dan Dan) Liou
• Website: robliou.github.io
• GitHub Organization (if applicable):

Short-Bio

My name is Rob Liou. I was born and raised in the Silicon Valley in the US. I moved to China (Shengli Oilfield in Shandong Province) in 2011 after obtaining my MBA from the University of Michigan. I have been coding since 2019, and have been involved in the NEO community since 2017, including deploying a number of projects the past 2 years.

My wife Cissy is from HeilongJiang Province (Qiqihar) originally. She and I both have a heart for the unmarried single women of faith in China. She is experienced in design, outreach and administration. We met at a house of worship in Beijing in 2014 but did not start dating until 4 years later.

We had our first child (a son) last year.

Portfolio of Projects / Past Experience

Last year, after participating in the NEO Frontier Hackathon in 2021, I was invited to give a demo on the first day of DemoWeek. My project, DDR Store, was later enrolled in the NEO Ecoboost Incubator:

https://www.store.robliou.com

The structure of this project will be quite similar to DDR in that they are both considered ' exchanges', with one of the bigger changes being that I will re-build the entire front-end using MUI instead of Bootstrap. Using Material UI will make the design much more attractive to users. Also, my experience gained from being enrolled in the EcoBoost program should help me to design an even more effective product this time. We consider this to be a long-term undertaking.

I have also built other tooling for the community in the past, primarily in the area of analytics:

https://www.neo-reg.robliou.com

and forecasting:

https://www.neo-cycle.robliou.com.

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Proposal Info :clipboard:

• Proposal Type: request-for-funding

• Amount Requested: 500

• Token: 0xd2a4cff31913016155e38e474a2c06d08be276cf (GAS)

• Receiver Address: NW3eqonPrRueuWi85cpHgqDrRnxP8Xzyta (0xb83c34adfaa1b364c79939142046b508d545256f)

• Created by: @robliou :rocket:

• Raw Intents: :eyes:

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