Guelph Cares app wins marathon competition
With just over 24 hours to produce ideas and solutions related to mental health on campus, students from a variety of disciplines took part in this year’s Guelph Hacks event.
Held over March 11 and 12 at the Science Complex Atrium, the hackathon was open to all students from any major and any university to participate.
One problem that many postsecondary institutions are currently facing is the rise in mental health issues on campuses. According to a national survey, colleges and universities find that more students are reporting being in distress compared to three years ago. In addition, reports of serious mental health crises, such as depression, anxiety, and thoughts about suicide, have also seen an increase over the past couple of years. As this problem is becoming more common, this year’s hackathon decided to focus on finding strategies for mental health. Participating students were expected to form groups and create well-thought out ideas to support positive mental health on campus.This year, around 60 graduate and undergraduate students, mostly from the computer science and engineering programs at Guelph, took part in the event. These students formed groups and developed ideas, wrote prototypes and computer programs, and then presented their work to a panel of seven judges all within the span of 36 hours.
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Many of the strategies generated by the hackathon included tools to encourage open communication about mental health.
Guelph Cares, an app designed by third-year computer science students Matthew Sampson, Dave Hudec, and Sean Lunt took the top prize.Their solution to support students struggling with mental health issues was to build a program that allows students to connect and discuss their struggles anonymously.
“Everybody has trouble with mental health once in awhile and would like to speak with someone who is not necessarily a friend or family [member],” said Sampson.
This program would be run by mental health professionals, as well as students who have received the required training through the Student Support Network on campus.
Lunt added that “Mental health has been a pretty big subject” on campus after the loss of four students to suicide this year. In the face of tragedy, many students have voiced their concerns about the increasing demand for mental health resources at U of G. The Guelph Cares team believes that the program would increase campus resources available to students and hopes to give them adequate support or connect the students to the right support systems before any crises were to occur.
The prizes were $4,000 for the first place team, $2,000 for second, and $1,000 for third place.The University will be working with the team behind Guelph Cares, as well as taking other ideas into consideration, to develop one viable system that can be used by the U of G community.
Photo by Mariah Bridgeman/The Ontarion.