Hacking For Mental Health Success

Posted on Saturday, March 14th, 2015

Written by Admin

Left to Right: Jon MacPherson (student organizer of Guelph Hacks), Matt Sampson (winner), Dave Hudec (winner), Sean Lunt (winner), and Patrick Houlding (student organizer of Guelph Hacks, and President of SOCIS)

This weekend 50+ students from across campus gathered to develop solutions to support positive mental health at the Guelph Hacks for Mental Health Hackathon. Working in teams of 2 to 4 students, participants developed tools to improve communication of existing on-campus services, built apps to encourage coping strategies with peers, or implemented tools to assist in the delivery of mental health services.

The event was sponsored by DELL EMC, as well as various groups on and off campus. Throughout the weekend students were mentored by representatives from the Canadian Mental Health Association of Wellington-Waterloo, Student Wellness, Adknown, Inbox Marketer, and Magnet Forensics. 

A special thank you to our panel of judges: Dr. Graham Taylor (School of Engineering), Dr. Judi McCuaig (School of Computer Science), Dr. John Beaton (Department of Family Relations & Applied Nutrition), Dr. Margaret Lumley (Department of Psychology), as well as Reverend John Borthwick (St. Andrew’s Church), Matt Anstett (Inbox Marketer), and Meredith Gardiner (Canadian Mental Health Association).

At the end of the weekend, $7,500 in cash prizes were awarded to 4 teams, as well as numerous other prizes provided by various local businesses and on-campus partners. 

Congratulations to Matt Sampson, Dave Hudec, and Sean Lunt who won 1st place and $4,000 for their app called Guelph Cares. Congratulations also to Dema Abu Adas, Aseel Mohamed, and Bilal Ayyache (2nd place, and $2,000 winners) for Maebot, Justin Carvalho and Rebecca Logan (3rd place, and $1,000 winners) for Talk To Me, and Sanket Joshi and Faizan Haider (4th place, and $500 winners) for their entry called GryphConnect.

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