Luminary is a directory and news platform celebrating women making global impact across fields such as business, science, technology, education, politics, and the arts.
The platform makes the work of women visible, verifiable, and searchable by providing a community-powered directory and curated news feed highlighting women driving change in their communities and industries.
This project was created as part of an International Women's Day initiative by Tabî Project and TEE Foundation.
Women across Africa and globally are leading businesses, driving scientific breakthroughs, shaping policy, creating art, and building communities. Despite this impact, they remain underrepresented in mainstream recognition platforms and media coverage.
Luminary aims to address this gap by providing a searchable platform that:
- Celebrates women making meaningful impact
- Enables public nominations and self-submissions
- Provides verified profiles with supporting evidence
- Surfaces news stories highlighting women globally
A searchable and filterable directory of verified profiles highlighting women across multiple fields.
Each profile includes:
- Full name
- Country
- Field(s) of work
- Organisation or initiative
- Biography and achievements
- Links to websites, projects, publications, and social profiles
- Profile photo
- Evidence links verifying the nominee's work
Directory functionality includes:
- Search by name, field, country, or organisation
- Filter by field category, country/region, or year of recognition
- Sorting by recently added, alphabetical, or field
Luminary allows both third-party nominations and self-submissions.
Submission features include:
- Nominee details
- Nominator details (for third-party nominations)
- Description of impact
- Field category
- Evidence links
- Photo uploads
For third-party nominations, nominees receive an automated email requesting consent before a profile is published.
Submission status workflow:
- Submitted → Outreach Sent → Consent Received → Published / Declined
Luminary includes a curated news feed highlighting stories of women making global impact.
News items include:
- Headline
- Source
- Summary
- Image
- External link
- Field tags
- Publication date
Additional features:
- Daily Spotlight highlighting one featured story
- Weekly Roundup summarizing major stories
- Filters by field, country, or date
- Moderated community news submissions
Profiles and news items are organised using a shared category system:
- Business & Entrepreneurship
- Science & Research
- Technology & Engineering
- Arts & Culture
- Activism & Advocacy
- Education & Academia
- Health & Medicine
- Agriculture & Food
- Politics & Governance
- Sport & Fitness
- Media & Journalism
- Finance & Economics
- Node.js v20+
- pnpm v10+ (
npm install -g pnpm) - A PostgreSQL database — a Neon project or any local/self-hosted Postgres instance
This project uses pnpm workspaces with Turborepo. The two apps are:
| App | Path | Description |
|---|---|---|
web |
apps/web |
Next.js frontend |
server |
apps/server |
Express (TypeScript) backend with Drizzle ORM |
From the repo root:
pnpm installpnpm devThis starts both apps concurrently via Turborepo.
Always run installs from the repo root using the --filter flag to target a specific app:
# Add a dependency to the frontend
pnpm add <package> --filter web
# Add a dependency to the backend
pnpm add <package> --filter server
# Add a dev dependency
pnpm add -D <package> --filter webEach app has its own .env file. Copy the example files and fill in your values:
cp apps/server/.env.example apps/server/.envThe server needs at minimum:
| Variable | Description |
|---|---|
DATABASE_URL |
Postgres connection string — a Neon URL (...neon.tech/...?sslmode=require) or a local one (postgresql://user:pass@localhost:5432/luminary) |
JWT_SECRET |
Secret for signing admin access tokens (e.g. openssl rand -hex 32) |
JWT_REFRESH_SECRET |
Secret for refresh tokens (optional, falls back to JWT_SECRET) |
ADMIN_EMAIL / ADMIN_PASSWORD |
Credentials created by the seed script |
SUPABASE_URL / SUPABASE_SERVICE_ROLE_KEY |
Only needed for image uploads (Supabase Storage) |
CORS_ORIGIN |
Frontend origin, defaults to http://localhost:3000 |
The server uses Drizzle ORM with plain Postgres, so the same commands work against Neon or a local instance — only DATABASE_URL changes. From apps/server:
pnpm db:migrate # apply SQL migrations from apps/server/drizzle/
pnpm db:seed # create the first admin user from ADMIN_EMAIL / ADMIN_PASSWORDOther database scripts:
pnpm db:generate # regenerate migrations after editing src/db/schema.ts
pnpm db:push # push schema directly without migration files (dev only)Frontend
- Next.js 16 (React 19)
- TypeScript
- Tailwind CSS
Backend
- Node.js
- Express 5
- TypeScript
Database
- PostgreSQL — Neon in production, any Postgres instance locally
- Drizzle ORM with SQL migrations via drizzle-kit
Authentication
- JWT (access + refresh tokens) with bcrypt-hashed admin credentials
- Resend or SendGrid
Image Storage
- Supabase Storage
CMS (News Management)
- Notion API or Strapi
Hosting
- Netlify (Frontend)
- Railway (Backend)
All profiles published on Luminary must meet verification requirements to maintain credibility.
Verification includes:
- At least one evidence link (press coverage, official website, published work, LinkedIn, etc.)
- Editorial review before publication
- Consent confirmation for third-party nominations
- Ability for users to flag inaccurate or outdated information
- Display of a "Last Verified" date on each profile
Luminary follows several core UX and accessibility principles:
- SEO-first page structure
- Mobile-first responsive design
- Accessible interfaces compliant with WCAG 2.1 AA
- Minimum touch target size of 44 × 44 pixels
- High color contrast for readability
- A visual tone that is celebratory but credible
Contributions are welcome.
Ways to contribute include:
- Submitting nominations
- Reporting incorrect profile information
- Suggesting improvements to the platform
- Contributing to development
Please see the CONTRIBUTING.md file for contribution guidelines.
This project is part of the Luminary initiative by the Tabî Project and TEE Foundation.