1000hills
Virtual tours of Rwanda's cultural heritage sites on iOS and Android
- Year
- 2023
- Role
- Lead mobile developer
- Status
- In development
- Stack
- React Native, Expo, ViroReact, Node.js, Figma
- Links
- Source ↗ (opens in a new tab)
Overview
1000hills is a mobile app for exploring Rwanda’s museums and heritage sites from anywhere. Guides and curators post artefacts with photos and video, and visitors browse them in a feed. Virtual tours and an AR viewer are next.
The problem
Rwanda’s heritage sites hold a lot of history, but most of it is only accessible if you can travel there. The people who know the stories best, guides and curators, have no simple way to share them with a wider audience.
What I did
- Led mobile development and designed the app in Figma, from sign-in to the post composer.
- Built the React Native app with Expo Router: feed, search, notifications and profiles.
- Built image and video uploads so guides can publish artefacts with photos and clips.
- Prototyped AR scenes with ViroReact for viewing artefacts in your own space.
- Connected the app to a Node.js API with Firebase authentication.
Status & next steps
Sign-up, the feed, profiles and posting work. Next are the virtual tours themselves and the AR viewer, then real content from heritage sites.