Inspiration
In the past few years, our world has changed drastically. During this time people have gone through incredible stressors and witnessed changes that have led to a rise in mental health support needs. This application does not claim to be a therapy alternative. Instead, it hopes to support those who may not be able to readily access therapy services (financial reasons, etc.) and curb the mental health crisis.
What it does
The main feature of this web application is a mental health support AI. Users can chat with an AI support bot (Jane). They can openly express concerns, thoughts, and questions to Jane who will respond with appropriate responses for each scenario. Jane's responses are tuned to be psychologically based, specific, and helpful.
How I built it
I built the application in the VS Code IDE. The main web application components - front and back end - are built with React, node.js, HTML, CSS, and JS. The chat responses are based on Google's Gemini AI and are engineered to be therapy/ mental health support oriented. Regular user testing has also contributed to the tuning and adjustments made to the chat application.
Challenges we ran into
The main challenges were with prompt engineering. Initially, the AI had many issues with its responses. It was often generic, non-helpful, and repetitive. However, these were issues that we were able to address.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
This was our first time using Gemini AI. I also do not have much experience building applications with React so I'm proud of the progress made!
What I learned
I learned how to build a web application using React, node.js, HTML, CSS, and JS. I learned how to work with the Gemini API. I also developed general skills related to web applications, APIs, and AI integration.
What's next for Jane: Mental Health Support AI
1) Allowing user data to be stored in accounts so that the AI can take all previous interactions and data into account when generating responses 2) Implement 2 modes: rant mode (listen more than respond), therapy/advice mode (provide advice) 3) Expanding into a mental health support community - integrating a mix of AI and human elements
Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.