Creating a crowdsourced contraband reporting web app with a headless Drupal

Update: Checkout the slides here!

Due to the rise of illegal trafficking and bootlegged merchandise in Costa Rica, the American Chamber of Commerce in Costa Rica (AMCHAM) partnered with the Treasury Ministry of Costa Rica to create a solution where citizens can report places where the illegal trafficking is taking place.

This session will go through the process we used to build a headless Drupal that uses Google Maps API along with AngularJS to create a fast loading, fully responsive platform.

The solution, mercadoilegal.com, has a lot of features implemented from contrib modules as well as custom created functionality:

1. Restful API.

2. Single page app, with Google Maps as well as recent articles, news and comments.

3. User generated content through the frontend, feeding drupal with georeferenced nodes with images, tags and comments.

4. SEO friendly frontend with AngularJS and shareable content.

5. OG modules to create multiples sites on a single drupal installation.

6. Custom domain or subdomain per OG site.

7. Personalization features per site, like country selection, language, colors, logos, and others.

8. A heavily modified backend with a personalized interaction to enhance the administrative user experience.

9. Georeferenced spreadsheet reports and content exports for the relevant authorities.

10. Cool frontend features to filter, preview, and transition through reports and content on the map.

The platform empowers citizens to contribute on the fight of illegal trafficking of goods, potentially harmful to the population. Also, with the agreement of the Treasury Ministry, the citizens contribute to the reduction of tax evasion which in 2012 accounted for about 7.7% of the GDP.

This webapp is continually being used by the citizens, showing successful use of open source technology in developing countries.

Yes, IT IS!

Even more if you..

1. … work as a backend developer interested in the internals of a drupal headless site.

2. … work as a stakeholder involved with decision making, for apps with interactivity and user generated content.

3. … work with government and want to look at a successful interaction of the citizens with the authorities.

4. … are interested in crowdsourcing platforms based on open source software.

Who am I?

I’m a partner at Manatí, a company of open source fanatics, where we have built complex information structures with Drupal, that can be easily accessed and consumed by human beings.