Lysten Alexa Skill

We lysten when no one else does.

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Inspiration

According to the Canadian Mental Health Association, mental illness affects 1 in 5 individuals with suicide accounting for 24% of all deaths among youth ages 15-24, the majority of them being students. Of these affected individuals, 49% have never gone to a professional because of fear of stigma and discrimination attached to mental illness. Lysten allows individuals to vent and speak their mind without worrying about the stigma attached to it.

What it does

Lysten is a product that is built around students. It listens for key words within a phrase and associating that with a feeling/emotion. From there, Lysten will respond accordingly and provide resources available based on an algorithm that tests for severity of the situation.

How we built it

We built this by using VoiceFlow to code an Alexa Skill. Lysten will understand what a user is feeling by picking up on key words. Lysten will then respond based on those words. Due to the limitations in time for this hackathon, only a few scenarios have been coded into the skill so far, but we plan to expand these scenarios and add additional functionality.

Challenges we ran into

A challenge we ran into is we were trying to use the native AWS and Alexa Development Console to code the app, but due to the learning curve, we were unable to make a fully functional demo. We worked around this by using VoiceFlow; an AWS software with a friendlier UI catered towards new learners.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of the concept and way this product works. We feel this product has a huge audience. Lysten also allows the user to talk and vent as if they were talking to another person, but the user will not be worried about the discrimination and stigma that someone may feel towards them afterwards.

What we learned

We learned a lot in terms of the tech in programming an Alexa Skill, but also about the importance and need of a service that helps individuals suffering from mental illness.

What's next for Lysten Alexa Skill

In the future, we want to implement a new feature that utilizes an algorithm and a database of key words to find the severity of the situation. We will accomplish this by having a value associated with a keyword and the algorithm will take the average of the key words an individual uses in a conversation. If this value exceeds a certain threshold, Lysten will prompt the user with professional resources and their contact information.

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