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SafePod
Inspiration
The biggest hurdle to people who experience traumatic situations from seeking help is the stigma that surrounds it. Largely due to lack of understanding from the society, people often tend to refrain from sharing which would otherwise be greatly beneficial in recovery. As technology has brought us closer, mental health is one area where technology still has a lot to offer. By ensuring a secure, anonymized channel of communication, we can help people shed the stigma that is often associated in these cases.
What it does
SafePod is a completely anonymous forum where users of the app can share their thoughts, experiences and seek, offer help. The sense of anonymity offered is so high that even the server does not know who the user is or any demographic information such as the IP address
How we built it
Since there was a dearth of mobile applications in this area, we built an android application. To ensure strong anonymity, we used TOR (The Onion Router) which is a widely used technology to ensure complete anonymity online. The backend was built using a Django server that maintains the forum data.
Challenges we ran into
Ensuring anonymity while being guarded against spam was perhaps the biggest challenge. We admit it is the first step and our priority was anonymity. Given a short 24 hour period, it was also challenging to bootstrap ourselves into new technology and tools.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We completed the app that successfully anonymized users of the app. This will encourage people to share which in turn helps speed up their recovery.
What we learned
If we sit together with a lot of coffee, a lot of good things can come out :)
What's next for SafePod
Our original goal for SafePod was to make an open effort. We intend to fully open source it and collaborate with health care providers to make mental health access easier.
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