MindMatters

Inspiration

We noticed that poor mental health within university is a problem that is becoming increasingly relevant. We wanted to create something to help university students balance uni life with good mental health. There is a long process to get support from trained professionals (up to 4 months) and this is just for the consultation appointment.

What it does

As many GPs recommend noting down peaks or lows in emotion in a journal (writing down location, time, who you are with and what music you were listening to) to self-track trends, we decided to simplify this process. Our app allows the user to make an entry and display these emotional trends using visual tools to improve self-understanding. We also store a set of contacts that the user can use in an emergency.

How we built it

In order to make this solution, we wanted a set of tools that operate across a range of devices and we found that JavaScript has near universal support. We used JavaScript, React JS, Gatsby and Twilio.

Challenges we ran into

Steep learning curve, time pressure, first time we have worked together in a team

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of how much we have learnt in these past 24 hours; we now feel much more confident in web development. We are pleased that we were able to use Twilio products in a relevant way within our app. Our goal was to produce something that would be of use to the people around us and we feel that we have achieved this.

What's next for MindMatters

We believe that there is a lot of room for scale with our app. There are certain features that we designed with a mind to implement these in the future such as:

a Maps page to display nearby hospitals/ counsellors, or saved locations
text alerts using Twilio before a certain low or high point in your day to remind you to include self-care in your routine
user accounts so that our platform is accessible from different devices
using Spotify to map certain feelings to songs that the user listens to, possibly to recommend similar