Disease Database

Inspiration

Over the past few years, I know some relatives and friends who have not sought a doctor or tried or could identify their ailments due to many reasons, some including no knowledge of their disease, the doctor being too expensive, or they don’t know how to look for help or are unable to find their disease online. Some of them waited too long and suffered greatly as a result while a cure and an identification of their disease earlier could have prevented permanent or serious injury. I almost experienced this fate. A few years ago I had an illness which is very uncommon in young adults. However, before I knew that, I had a very hard time identifying what I had due to a lack of online information and support. Only when I discovered a Reddit post from the obscure part of the internet that I decided to see a doctor which greatly reduced physical pain from my illness and possibly permanent nerve damage. Thus, this database seeks to break the barrier of fear, access to information, and money which will prevent unnecessary suffering from as many people as possible, especially in places where there is limited access to credible sources of information.

What it does

People can search for information about many illnesses with actual people and their experience with the disease which is very valuable. They can also upload their disease to help them identify it with the help of others.

How we built it

At first, we messed around with what our website wanted to look like. After we thought of the design, we started with HTML, javascript, and PHP.

Challenges we ran into

Both group members have never done a hackathon before. In addition, while one group member was decently experienced in website building the other had no experience in coding. Thus he had to learn it all in one day.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

The inexperienced group member was able to contribute and learned a lot during the hackathon. We are also proud of attending and completing our first hackathon.