image of mr. pound installing voicebox at pasadena city college
voicebox tech stack icons
voicebox tech stack icons
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VoiceBox:Abstract

Role(technical)

Role(admin)

Acted as sole engineer:

  • Cloud Architect
  • Software Architect
  • Software Engineer
  • Technical Writer
  • Technical Project Manager
  • Cloud SysOps (active)

Share 50% of UI/UX design workload with colleagues at TreBordenCo.

Design and implement system hardware: lighting, A/V, mobile power, mobile data connections.

Results

A short lead time required a dynamic staggered release of features:

  • 3 month lead time to first activation
  • 5 stages of lifecycle updates successfully pushed to production over the following year.

No downtime, lost data or media, 100’s of stories captured at 25 activation locations.

VoiceBox has leveraged this original activation into partnerships with multiple Non-Profits, and is currently in talks for wide-spread use within corporate office settings.

At the table for the conception of this project setting:

  • conceptual ideas
  • technical budget
  • production time tables
  • technical limitations

Present at all major activations, managing and training our client’s staff and volunteer team.

Directly interacting with high profile corporate and political individuals as a representative of VoiceBox x TreBordenCo.

Direct administrator support to client staff and admin e.g lawyers,media editors, and management.

Motivation

Imagined in response to the Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade June 2022.

Goal

Quickly, honestly, and efficiently gather real stories at events, rallies and gatherings in a safe private and confidence building environment. Enable our partners to engage with these stories and narratives in a reflexive and powerful way.

VoiceBox: Introduction

Three applications combine to create a SAAS for story collection, editing and outreach

video of chaperone use

Chaperone App-Tablet Application 

Handheld tablet used by organization staff and volunteers

Connected to our media library, all gathered data is easily and securely uploaded and stored in the cloud.

Collect:
  • contact information
  • demographic information
  • digitally signed release forms

Voicebox console control:
  • control of participant queue
  • live step and status updates from Voicebox console application
  • name and description of the active participant

video of inbox use

InBox App-Console Application  

Interactive display and media capture

The participant interacts with VoiceBox through the console application. Upon entering The participant is welcomed by name.

All form requirements completed prior to console use thus allowing the InBox experience to be relaxed and guided.

Participants are verbally and visually introduced to the concepts of the activation. They are given prompts to speak about, calmed and reassured.

video of cloud platform use

Media Library-Cloud Platform  

Organizes everything collected

Media library is web application that centralizes media and data gathered on location to be easily accessed and used by editors and administration.

Organization Tools:
  • in-browser video streaming
  • ratings system
  • editor comments
  • playlists
  • search by: location, date, ratings, name
  • action history

Player doens't work on server

VoiceBox:Technical Details

Simplified VoiceBox cloud diagram

*Simplified AWS services structure does not show auth, redundancy, nginx r.proxy servers, etc.

Chaperone App

Chaperone App Tech Stack

App Features

  • As many participants gather a chaperone can collect necessary release form and contact data: entries organized by name and time of sign-up. The chaperone can change participant queue order as necessary. This at minimum doubles the activation user throughput
  • The chaperone app notifies the user when a participant finishes their story, and supplies name of finishing participant and name of new participant, easing the process of polite efficient interaction.
  • Chaperone app updates the InBox app to great participant by name, further confirming the correct user data and release forms are connected to the proper user

InBox App

Chaperone App Tech Stack

App Features

  • Combined with external shotgun microphone the InBox App records production quality 4k video used in media outreach
  • participant video stored and encrypted locally until connected to a high quality internet connection.
  • automated upload of all captured video to our Cloud Media Library
  • redundant local storage, error logging and video receipt confirmation
  • Provides an interactive, multi-lingual, audio-visual introduction that guides participants through process.

Cloud Servers

Chaperone App Tech Stack

App Features

  • Redundant, highly available Ec2 servers running Ubuntu Server
  • AWS auto-scaling used for failover and scaling
  • Lambda Serverless infrastructure used for burst processing: media formatting and release form generation
  • nginx running on ec2 as reverse-proxy

Media Library

Chaperone App Tech Stack

App Features

  • A graphical user interface that organizes participants with their assets: video, contact and demographic information, and release forms
  • Provides tools to aid organization between media and administration teams: playlists, rating systems, tagging system, video use tracking list, and editor commentary
  • a fully searchable library, search with: name, location, date, ratings, etc.
  • a secure cloud application using AWS Cognito: User Pools for user authentication.

VoiceBox Case Study

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