Inspiration
I myself have PCOS and have always found it to be under researched. I'd been repeatedly dismissed and given temporary solutions without understanding the root cause. Over they years, and after my own research, I've ;earned that PCOS requires a constant lifestyle vigilance, which is overwhelming. Therefore, I wanted to build something that I wish existed when I first began my journey.
What it does
Vigila is an educational web app with a chatbot companion. It teaches the different PCOS types, helps you recognize your own symptoms with solutions for them, and has a statisticss page to show that you're not alone. The chatbot acts as an emotional support and/or a place to just vent when you don't want to be judged or misunderstood.
How we built it
For the frontend I used React, Vite, and Tailwind. For the backend I used FastAPI and Python. I used pandas for data processing and Gemini API (free tier) for the chatbot.
Challenges we ran into
It was a little more difficult to build alone than anticipated due to the tight timeline. I also had to switch from the Anthropic API I originally planned on using to Gemini API due to billing. Additionally, I had to put aside some time to verify medical claims against real sources so nothing was made up.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
Built a working end-to-end pipeline starting with a real dataset, using pandas, and creating a live chart. I'm proud of the chatbot having thoughtful guardrails and not just a wrapper around an API.
What we learned
I learned how to pivot fast when a tool breaks under deadline pressure. I also learned how to prompt/system design for a senstive-topic chatbot.
What's next for Vigila
Next would be finishing deployment and expanding the content. I'd also want to explore sustainable ways to keep Vigila updated long term, potentially through partnerships, while being really careful that anything like that never compromises Vigila.
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