Emory

Inspiration

As a psychology student, Lisa always been interested in improving mental health support. One of the biggest challenges in counseling is that clients struggle to put their emotions into words—especially in the first session. This makes it difficult for counselors to provide effective support right away. Additionally, I spoke with a Master of Social Work student who pointed out another challenge:
With the rise of remote counseling, this problem is only growing. I wanted to create a solution that helps counselors start sessions with deeper insights—without relying solely on subjective self-reports from clients.

What it does

The system records videos of clients talking about themselves, analyzes the videos, and displays graphs showing how their speech patterns vary in different situations. This helps counselors prepare for sessions by reviewing key features of the client’s communication, ultimately saving time. For clients, the system provides a more comfortable way to express themselves.

How we built it

In development, we used docker to manage the version consistency between teammate. Framework is React for frontend, Flask for backend, MySQL and DynamoDB-local for database, AWS S3 for storage. For the deployment, I uploaded React and Flask on AWS EC2 and used AWS RDS for MySQL. I did not use AWS DynamoDB since we did not have implemented any functions that requires it yet. In Flask backend, we used AWS SNS, Transcribe, Comprehend, Rekognition and ChatGPT.

Challenges we ran into

One of the main challenges we encountered was the tight time constraint, which required us to complete the project within a limited timeframe. Additionally, the initial requirements definition was unclear, leading to some confusion and adjustments as we progressed with the development.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We’re proud of how our team worked together to complete the coding, with one member focusing on the core idea and system design while the other three took charge of the development. Additionally, we successfully deployed the system, ensuring it was fully functional and ready for use.