Hotspot Health

Inspiration

With the COVID-19 pandemic, the world endured lockdowns on an international scale. We frequented Coronavirus tracking websites such as the John Hopkins COVID-19 Map, and sought to expand the tool to work across broader conditions.

What it does

Millions of sick cases go unreported to official channels. Hotspot Health aggregates this data through crowd-sourced user reports, proactively pointing out problematic places of high infection. With Hotspot Health, sick users can submit a report containing where they may have been infected (associated with confidence), the symptoms they have, and any additional information they want to provide. Gemini API integration then analyzes the given symptoms and description to guess an illness with a certain confidence interval. This information is mapped onto a map tool, where healthy users can spot high risk locations of infection. With this information, users can make informed choices on which areas are high sources of infection and proactively make preparations to limit being infected. Information that can be used to identify a certain individual is only accessible to administrators and health professionals.

How we built it

With the web application, we split the application into three parts: front-end with Next.js, back-end with Java Maven, and database management with MongoDB Atlas. Each of us worked on individual sections of the project, allowing for asynchronous development

Challenges we ran into

As second year Computer Science students, we had all taken CPSC 210 at UBC. As such, we decided to use Java for the backend. We did not know how difficult implementation would be. Large amounts of time were spent on enabling Java for web application use through learning Maven and Spring Boot processes.

What we learned

We approached this hackathon with the goal to learn new tools and frameworks and expand our knowledge. This has been achieved, as we have learned how to implement MongoDB, Spring Boot, Maven, and/or Next.js in a web application. Additionally, we learned of the limitations of using Java as a backend in a hackathon.

What's next for Hotspot Health

With additional time towards Hotspot Health, we would create a functional webapp for doctors and nurses, allowing medical professionals to access underreported data for less serious diseases with less urgent symptoms. This would allow health care professionals to have additional context when analyzing patient cases on clinic and make a more informed decision.

Built With

• gemini-api
• java
• javascript
• leaflet.js
• maven
• mongodb
• nextjs
• openmaptiles
• spring-boot