Trusted partner
Since they’re a small team, without any app development knowledge, GAIA teamed up with us to create their mobile app: ‘GAIA, help animals in 1 click’.
Go to overview
GAIA
Empowering 75,000+ animal rights advocates through a custom mobile app.
GAIA, Belgium’s largest animal rights organization, wanted to empower its 75,000+ members with a mobile app that simplifies activism. From signing petitions to sharing campaigns, members needed a faster, easier way to take action. We developed a scalable mobile app and CMS platform that allows animal protectors to make an impact in just one click.
Services
Tech
The issue
GAIA wanted to create an app that allows their members to become animal protectors 3.0: faster, more efficient and better. Send out a protest email? Sign a petition? Share on social media? It should all be possible in a few simple clicks.
Our solution
To address these challenges, we built a custom mobile app and supporting CMS that work hand in hand to deliver fast, engaging, and impactful experiences.
- Native-like performance on both iOS and Android using Flutter
- Seamless content delivery via a tailored Content Management System
- Core functionalities: sign petitions, send protest emails, share actions on social media
- Modular and scalable architecture for future growth
- Custom analytics integration for campaign insights
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It was important for us to collaborate with a party we could trust, has proven professionalism and provides quality apps
Ann De Greef
CEO
at
GAIA
More than an app
To tackle issues of their first app, they sat together with our project manager to discuss the matter. “We wanted a reliable app, one that our members would appreciate, and one that truly helps the animals”, says Ann De Greef, CEO of GAIA. “That’s why icapps not only developed the app, but also created the CMS (Content Management System)”, she adds.
“The CMS feeds the app with content such as articles, videos, and photos. At a first glance, these systems work pretty easily. However, it’s always challenging to create a CMS that is user-friendly and flexible”, says Freek van Laarhoven, Project Manager at icapps. In the end, our team developed the app by combining three different platforms, which asked for consistent coordination between the developers.
Flutter as a technology
We chose Flutter as a base technology because with only one codebase it can run on all devices (iOS and Android), it focuses on performance and animations, and maybe most importantly, Flutter is an open-source technology - which was perfect for what the app GAIA had in mind.
On top of that, instead of putting four developers on the task, we only had to work with two developers to build the app for both iOS and Android.
Developing in times of a pandemic
Although the project started before the outbreak of the coronavirus, at the end, all feedback had to be discussed remotely. Because a lot of people were working on the project simultaneously, it took some time to keep everyone in the loop. But luckily at icapps, remote working and holding weekly scrum meetings have always been part of our routine.
“Honestly, it was a real challenge”, Ann De Greef remembers, “but quite fast, we managed to organize video calls on a regular basis and in an efficient manner. That way, we kept everyone on the same page.”, she adds. “It remained quite challenging to keep everyone up to date, but we felt very involved in every step icapps took to create the app. We were able to work very closely together in difficult times, so we were quickly convinced of the professionalism of icapps”, Ann De Greef concludes.
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