“Fanta-bulous” functional products created by students were featured in a competition Friday at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s AI and Mental Health Hackathon competition.
“I meant to say ‘fabulous’ at first, then I also meant to say ‘fantastic,’ but ‘fanta-bulous’ came out,” said UALR student James Dempsey, a member of the winning team. “There were a lot of fantastic projects that were made and I was concerned about our ability to hold up, but clearly it came out in the end doing well.”
On Friday, Focus Coach, Dempsey’s team, competed against four other teams who had to solve real-world mental health problems using Artificial Intelligence.
At the beginning of the week, 42 students divided into five groups used different Artificial Intelligence tools to develop solutions to real-world mental health problems by presenting a minimum viable product — a functional, full-scale product with core features intended for real customers to test and provide feedback on.
The teams presented their product to a panel of judges who determined how well the team understood the problem and context, how they worked together, how they learned and used AI, how likely the product is to make the expected impact and how clear the plan is.
“I enjoyed meeting and working with a team of people that I’ve never met, all different backgrounds, different ages (and) different stories,” Dempsey said. “And then also learning about new developments in AI and new websites that you can use for development.”
The winning team received a cash prize of $2,100 to split among their members.
“I enjoyed every second, every bit of it,” said Duron Huggins, 15, another teammate of Focus Coach.
Huggins contributed to his team by building the dashboard of their product, “I took everybody’s ideas and put it into one space,” Huggins said.
Speechless from astonishment, Huggins said he felt ecstatic about winning, “I was crossing my fingers the whole time and praying … all the good stuff,” Huggins said. “I didn’t expect to win, all the other teams, they were really good.”
On the final scores, each of the five teams were separated by less than two percentage points in terms of overall points, the top three teams were separated by less than one percentage point, Brian Berry said.
Berry, the vice provost of research and dean of the graduate school at UALR, was one of the judges in the hackathon competition.
“The mission (of Focus Coach) is to create an extension or website that helps users increase their focus,” said UALR student Elliot Estes, 23, another member of Focus Coach, on Tuesday. “The goal is to have subtle, affirming and gentle reminders and popups to push the user to either take a break or do some sort of mindful activity … that could increase attention.”
AI can be beneficial because of the personalization aspect of it, having a system that learns over time what particular thing each user is struggling with, Estes said.
“I know a lot of the time when people are struggling with mental health challenges, it can feel really overwhelming to take on any sort of treatment, especially if they don’t have the financial resources,” Estes said. “I think that (a) big aspect of AI and mental health is: how many people can this benefit that otherwise would not have access to any sort of treatment?”
The AI and Mental Health Hackathon, a free summer camp for students in high school or college, started Monday.
The hackathon had sessions from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. with a lunch break and a mindfulness break in between. In the mornings, students attended classes to learn more about AI and the technology they’d be using, then in the afternoon they would gather with their teammates and work on their projects.
“It’s a hackathon, but it’s not a classic hackathon,” said program coordinator Marla Johnson. “I’ve really blended a classic coding hackathon with the business side and the application side. These students are learning about value proposition and making sure they understand the customer … they’re actually strategically applying AI to the problem.”
Another huge difference in this hackathon and others is that mental health experts and AI experts are volunteering their time with the students to advise them when needed, according to Johnson.
Johnson put together a group of mental health specialists who ideated about what problems they deal with and how it can be used as a real-world challenge for the students to solve.
High school student Vishak Meenachi, 15, had the challenge of Rapid Route.
“Rapid Route is focused on mental health … and physical health of veterans,” Meenachi said. “Some veterans are homeless, so we are making it so they can access these resources through local libraries and homeless shelters.”
Meenachi has attended multiple summer camps because he likes learning during summer and it keeps him prepared.
He said he enjoys learning a lot about computer science because it is always evolving and changing and “I like AI because it can help you in ways that humans can’t,” Meenachi said.
This hackathon has changed the way Meenachi views mental health, “I look towards more people in a positive way instead of making assumptions,” Meenachi said.
Another challenge presented was Teen2Teen Connect.
Teens usually don’t like opening up to adults or their parents, teens would rather talk to peers because they feel that the other teen would understand them better because of possible similar experiences, Janav Jawahar, 16, said.
“Which is why this project wants us to have a platform where teens can talk to teens about their day-to-day problems,” he said.
Jawahar has an interest in AI because he said he sees its potential and believes he should learn what is up and coming in the world so that he can adapt to however the world is going to change.
Sponsors of this year’s hackathon were Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield and Arkansas Children’s Hospital.
June 8-12 of next year is scheduled for the next hackathon and in the next 12 months, Johnson said she is going to work to get “an additional sponsorship so that the school can afford to provide housing to the students while they’re here (which) would allow students from rural communities and smaller towns all around Arkansas to join us.”
