Clione

Inspiration

Living in a world where the number of people with mental health conditions increase year by year, the importance of people being able to express themselves is bigger than ever, yet many people choose not to express themselves to people they know as they can be judged. The WHO's 2011 report showed that 'People with mental health conditions face discrimination even in health care settings.' We have been inspired by this idea that there is a lack of expression.

What it does

Our app is an online platform on Android that allows people to anonymously allow themselves to express their issues amongst people all over the world, gaining advice and encouragement. With Clione, people can gain help on issues relating to a variety of issues they may have, from relationships, their body, self-identity and more. At the start of the app you can find people who are in the same issues as you, allowing you to relate to people with the same culture and language as you. Allowing you to know that the person on the other side of the screen is someone just like you - helping you realize that you aren't alone.

How we built it

Through talking with our developer and a variety of mentors, we have gained insight in a variety of ways about the problems of the application in its primary stage, about sensitivity, generating revenue, security issues and more. Through an online survey we have decided what people would pay for in the app, and more.

Challenges we ran into

Some challenges we ran into were security issues and how to generate revenue.

Some of the security issues we thought could be that people who deliberately went on the website to cause mental harm to these already vulnerable people. To resolve this we thought of the idea of an report and honor system. Through the report system we could permanently remove people on the platform that threatened to bring harm to the community. The honor system allows us to contact people who have accepting, helpful and reassuring to become moderators - allowing us to police the chatrooms. These people would be trained by a professional therapist in the basics on what to do and what not to do.

Another issue was how to generate revenue. An idea we had was to generate revenue through donations and advertisements. Some of the ideas we had were to add additional features, such as a mood chart, texting a professional therapist, removal of advertisements and more. Another idea was to contact the government, schools and medical facilities if they would be interested in supporting the product.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Some the accomplishments of this was the idea itself - the simple idea of providing a platform where people can easily anonymously express themselves online through the beauty of the Internet to others, knowing that they aren't alone is something we're proud of.

What I learned

I've learnt that the problem of people with mental health issues is more prominent than ever, there is a serious problem with this and it needs to be recognised.

What's next for Clione

We hope to develop our idea into a full-fleshed business, extending to all across the world, providing solace to people, in a variety of languages and enabling people of all issues to easily express themselves, through writing recognition, voice recognition, etc.