Student Thiago Tonus, a Public Administration student at the Faculty of Applied Sciences (FCA) at Unicamp, in Limeira participated in a hackathon and, together with five other professionals, developed a proposal for psychological support through a digital platform for those who are in front line in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic. Through the app Ampara App, health professionals can find psychologists available to assist them free of charge during and after the pandemic.
For 11 days, the team dedicated itself to developing a solution to the challenge: "How to maintain contact and mental health support during isolation?". The challenge was proposed in Hack for Good 2020 Edition da empresa Shawee in partnership with Twilio, a company specializing in APIs, and carried out entirely online during the month of April this year.
After several research, the group decided to tackle the problem experienced by doctors, nurses and all health agents involved in the fight against Covid-19. According to Thiago, these professionals are bombarded with negative information, deal with people's suffering and need to deal with the fact that they are considered heroes and are expected to be well at all times. "If that wasn't enough, in their homes they were forced to occupy separate rooms from their family members and often cannot share their feelings, as this involves, in some cases, the oath they took to secrecy in relation to their patients", explains the student.
For him, it was a challenge to think of a solution in the middle of a pandemic. "We held the meetings completely online and first used people we knew to validate our hypotheses. Now we want to expand the project. We could have thought of many other solutions, but the impacts on mental health are not only in the short term, but in the medium and long term. long term can be devastating for these professionals", comments Thiago.
The team developed the Ampara App which promotes the well-being and mental health of these professionals, creating a psychological and collaborative support network. The solution came in 2nd place in the competition. At first, the project, which is now a startup, wants to serve as many people as possible, as the structure was largely developed during the Hackathon and now just needs to be made available to the population.
Psychologists who sign up as volunteers, in addition to helping these professionals, will gain an exclusive remote service platform and will later be able to use the application for their other consultations. The project is already competing for investment from funding organizations in the United States and is looking for new ways to finance the application.
Twilio, sponsor of the Hackathon from which the solution was born, is already supporting the project, as well as Psychological Support Network created by psychologists from all over Brazil to provide assistance to volunteers. The objective of Ampara App at this moment is to reach more people. Therefore, health professionals or volunteer psychologists can access the application and register for more information. Those interested in supporting the project should contact us via e-mail.
What is a hackathon?
Hackathon, a Portuguese term sometimes used for "hackaton," is a programming marathon in which hackers gather for hours, days or even weeks in order to explore open data, uncover codes and logical systems, discuss new ideas and develop software projects or even hardware.
