Volunteer organizations face the challenge of efficiently organizing their work and engaging members in the process. They often lack digital tools specifically tailored to their needs, such as meeting scheduling, task coordination, or attendance management. Existing applications tend to be too generic, difficult to use, or insufficient in functionality. This often leads to inefficient processes, communication issues, and wasted time. An innovative solution is needed—one that addresses the specific requirements of these organizations while remaining easily accessible and user-friendly.
Existing solutions in club and event organization, such as Doodle or Trello, offer individual functions like appointment scheduling or task management. However, these platforms lack an integrated set of tools tailored to the specific challenges of volunteer organizations. Moreover, they are often designed for larger companies or individual users, making them less suitable for clubs. In particular, there is no comprehensive solution covering attendance management, protocol creation, and voting processes. This is where "Pleno" comes in, uniting all these aspects in a single platform.
The interdisciplinary project "Pleno" aims to develop an AI-supported platform that simplifies the work of volunteer organizations. The focus is on providing an app that integrates various functions such as meeting scheduling, protocol creation, voting, and carpooling. A central design aspect is user-friendliness, ensuring that even less technically inclined members can use the app with ease. Additionally, the platform offers an administrative app for club managers, enabling role assignment, member management, and club settings adjustment. The development process followed an iterative approach with user tests and feedback loops to optimally tailor the application to the target audience's needs.
The project team developed Android and iOS apps, complemented by a separate administrative app for iPadOS. The technical implementation included developing a QR and numeric code system for attendance registration, as well as AI-based functions for protocol translation. The platform’s design was tested both as a clickable prototype and as a fully functional implementation. Legal requirements were addressed by creating prototype versions of terms and conditions, privacy policies, and an imprint. Additionally, a comprehensive marketing strategy was developed to make the app accessible to potential user groups after project completion.
The further development of "Pleno" offers tremendous potential to support volunteer organizations even more effectively. With added enhancements in the later stages of the project, such as surveys and events, added additional valuable features to the platform. In the long term, functionalities like automatic task distribution, an expanded reporting system, or the integration of third-party services such as calendars or messaging platforms could be implemented. Furthermore, the platform could be more deeply integrated into the volunteer community through workshops and tutorials. Its scalability and adaptability also make it suitable for larger organizations or additional target groups such as non-profit companies.
The following documentation is conducted in german.
The code can be found in the repository above. To clone the project you can click on <> Code, copy the URL for the repository and clone the repository either using your terminal or visual studio code, navigating in the directory you want the project to be in and typing in git clone https://gitlab.hsrw.eu/30182/kivop.git or by simply copying the command and pasting it into the terminal. Press enter to create your local clone.
Additional features that are not yet implemented but where thought to be good enhancements for the project can be found here
This project was brought to life through the collaboration of 21 individuals from four different academic disciplines. Their diverse expertise and shared commitment are clearly reflected in the final product. Beyond merely fulfilling academic requirements, the team was driven by a genuine desire to create an app that makes a real difference in organizing volunteer work.
This project is liscensed under MIT-0.
``MIT No Attribution
Copyright 2025 KIVoP
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.``
Please note that the project status is currently "paused" due to the submission process at the university. We expect the project to remain inactive during this period and will resume further developments should there be additional plans for developement in the future.