More than 50 Vancouverites put their hacking skills to the test on Saturday November 18, 2017, to hack a solution for the Movember’s initiative to address the biggest health issue facing men today: mental health and suicide prevention.
In just 12 hours, MoHacks teams went from ideas to a business concept, fleshing out their ideas and created a solid business presentation along a prototype. UI/UX designers, and industry experts across Vancouver took part mentoring hackers, including experts from Speakbox, UBC, BCIT, Oiled Digital, Headcheck Health and SAP.
Hosted at Red Academy and organized by ProtoHack, teams united and brought great ideas to life under a condensed learning experience. At the end of the day, each team within 90 seconds and 10 slides pitched their solutions to hack men’s mental wellness to a panel of judges – executives from Victory Square, Careteam, Relentless Pursuit, UBC and Genome BC.
The top 3 teams comprise of a notable five BCIT students, currently studying Computer Systems, Marketing, Finance and Entrepreneurship programs. Outstanding Movember-based projects included an Ai chatbot to educate a men’s support network on tactics to address sensitive conversations, an anonymous chat room for men to unwind and a B2B solution to analyze the overall mental health of employees within an organization.
The Experience
As my first hackathon event, it felt as if it was a 12 hour career fair on steroids! Yet, the event attracted such like-minded people eager to learn new things, all for the sole purpose of hacking men’s mental health. As such as broad topic, my team created our core project strategy and generate a dozen ideas and tactics to accomplish our strategy of educating the support network of males facing mental wellness issues. It was a thrilling, yet compelling 12 hours of bonding with teammates, and now great friends.
Interested in sharing ideas, learning from others, building connections and hacking an idea from the ground up? Check out the ProtoHack website for a list of upcoming design-based hackathons in Vancouver!
Happy Hacking!
Merina Leong
Got feedback or new ideas? Let’s grab a coffee and chat!
Hi Merina,
My name is Aaron Schulze from BCIT News.
Would you be alright to do an on camera interview regarding the Hackathon at any time on Tuesday? The whole process seems interesting and I think it’d make a lovely story for BCIT Magazine.
Thank you for reading and enjoy your day.
-Aaron