HealthLocate

Inspiration

As an aspiring doctor, I wanted to focus my project on the health sector. During my ideation stage, I looked for inspiration from my local community here in the Philippines and related my experiences to the target area of this hackathon (Indonesia). I saw that while many Filipinos are aware about fundamental health concepts, they can no longer catch up with health updates, as the world is transitioning to digital health. As per the words of my grandfather, he is struggling to use social media to communicate with doctors or research about medicines and potential illnesses. When I incorporated these experiences into the Indonesian nation, I also found out that many Indonesians are hesitant to try digital health apps due to the "complicated nature" of these apps. Thus, I was inspired to start HealthLocate; this proposed application was ideated out of the struggles of many ordinary citizens to adapt to the digital health landscape in developing countries like Philippines and Indonesia.

What it does

HealthLocate has three main features:

1. Geolocation - Users may manually input their location (or enable the location feature of their phones). Whenever a disease outbreak is reported in the user's location, the app will alert the user of the spread of the outbreak, as well as of relevant health tips. The location feature will also allow users to find nearby hospitals or health centers that cater to specific diseases.
2. Almanac - The almanac feature will allow users to search for common health terms and medicines. This is particularly helpful for adults and the elderly who are struggling to understand terms related to diseases, medications, and health.
3. Multimedia - The multimedia feature will provide users with external links to videos and news articles related to health updates.

How we built it

HealthLocate is still in the ideation/pitch proposal stage, so it is not developed through coding/programming yet.

Challenges we ran into

I was struggling to finish the calculations for the market size of the application; however, I was able to accomplish this by looking at backgrounds and examples of market research published in reputable journals.

Another challenge I faced is that I was alone for this hackathon since I was a bit shy to look for a team. But I'm still happy I managed to finish this :)

Accomplishments that we're proud of

I am very happy that I was able to finish the expected layout and content for my proposed application, as well as the expected market sizes, customer segments, and market plans that I will have to utilize if it (hopefully) gets launched in the near future. I am also proud that through this simple application, I could find a way to achieve my advocacy of ensuring quality health care for my community.

What we learned

Throughout my ideation stage for the app, I learned these three valuable lessons:

1. Start with the community - All of our ideas should be rooted in the community's struggles. Instead of simply building or designing apps for "winning", using our skills to give back to society is the best course of action. HealthLocate was always meant for the health sector.
2. Know the contenders' ups and downs - Research the competitor landscape. Find the current weaknesses or lapses of apps on your target market, and make sure that you address these lapses.
3. Know your audience - Make sure your app can be scaled for all demographics by studying the audience. HealthLocate can be used by most age groups: the almanac for the elderly, the geolocation feature for adults, and the multimedia feature for teens and pre-teens.

What's next for HealthLocate

I hope to improve my coding skills or partner with programming experts to make this pitch come to a reality! Also, once the HealthLocate application is launched in the market, I hope that I will be able to effectively carry out the go-to-market plan and popularize the app across Philippines and Indonesian areas :)

Built With

• none