Now more than ever we as a state, country, and world struggle with addiction, depression, and silent struggle. Online bullying, domestic abuse, there are millions who are afraid to speak out, or don't know that they can.
Lifeline is meant to be a conduit for the loving and concerned to reach out to those who they think might be struggling. Often who struggle with addiction are hostile to direct confrontation, and those who suffer from depression, online bullying, or domestic abuse are too afraid to speak to those who care. The purpose is for friends and family to be able to anonymously share their concern. Users tag their friends with a level and type of concern that they have. If enough community members show serious concern, the user is flagged. Flagged users can be sent information relating to their struggles, or be reached out to by a professional.
I built this app mostly in the Laravel PHP framework. Currently it is still being prototyped on my local development environment.
The final version here at HACK AE is made with Steam, a gaming platform. Initially, it was meant to be for Facebook, as that is a far more social platform. However, after struggling for quite some time with their API, it turns out Facebook does not release full friend's lists to 3rd party apps without special review, which sort of defeats the purpose. So about halfway into the build I had to scrap most of what I had done so far and move to Steam as a proof of concept.
I'm fairly happy I managed to get a reasonably working project together given the late issues.
Hackathons aren't the greatest idea.
Lifeline is likely to be retired after this Hackathon. While I do believe the idea could actually save many lives, to reach that potential would require the coordination and cooperation government bodies, large corporations, and a substantial investment in continued dev time.
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