A social-impact roommate matching platform for Israeli universities
RoofMate is an Android-first nonprofit app designed to help students find compatible roommates across Israeli universities.
Built by an 11-person Israeli–Palestinian team, RoofMate applies NLP embeddings and vector similarity to match users by interests, habits, and values — promoting not only better living experiences but also cross-cultural connection in shared dorms.
The app was created as part of the MEET (Middle East Entrepreneurs of Tomorrow) program, in collaboration with mentors from MIT and Google for Startups.
Dorm roommate mismatches often lead to stress, isolation, and high turnover.
RoofMate aims to reduce dropouts and social tension by pairing students through shared personality traits and mutual respect — especially across divided communities.
- Frontend: React Native (Android)
- Backend: Python + Flask + Firebase
- Database: Firestore
- Authentication: Firebase Auth
- Notifications: Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM)
- Matching Engine: NLP embeddings + cosine similarity
- Hosting: Firebase Hosting
- Version Control: GitHub
- 🧩 Smart matching: NLP vector comparison of bios & interests
- 💬 Private chat: Real-time 1:1 messaging (Socket.IO)
- 🔔 Push notifications: FCM alerts when offline users receive messages
- 🧾 Verification: ID capture & native camera integration for student validation
- 🏫 University dashboards: Tools for admins to oversee verified student lists
- 🌐 Offline drafts: Write bios & preferences even without connection
This public case-study disables real data exchange and messaging.
Use “Load Example Profiles” on the home screen to view the full flow with synthetic data.
All user data is anonymized, and sensitive backend tokens are omitted.
As lead developer and product architect:
- Directed the transition to an Android-first architecture after user research showed higher mobile onboarding rates.
- Designed UI/UX flow and implemented verification & notifications logic.
- Integrated Firebase Auth, Firestore, and Socket.IO.
- Led a binational team of 11, coordinating cross-role collaboration.
- Wrote the matching model using Hugging Face’s Transformers API.
- Conducted surveys with 200+ students and 3 universities; found 42% drop-off during web onboarding → pivoted to mobile-first.
- Implemented ethical data standards: no location tracking, no ad monetization, and full transparency on profile data usage.
RoofMate is more than a roommate app — it’s a model of shared living and coexistence.
Our goal is to expand the platform to every Israeli university and, eventually, to international exchange dorms.
All user data is encrypted and stored on Firebase with restricted access.
This case-study version omits API keys, tokens, and verification data.
git clone https://github.com/yourusername/roofmate.git
cd roofmate
pip install -r requirements.txt
npm install
npm start