Ask HN: I'm 15, won a grant to develop a suicide prevention app, what next?

#1

Post by krrishd » Mon, Nov 18, 2013, 4:10 PM UTC

Some background: I'm 15 years old, attend high school, do well in terms of grades and extracurriculars (business clubs/competitions), and also am a pretty good front-end developer experienced with HTML/Jade,CSS/LESS, JS/jQuery/AngularJS, and Phonegap/Cordova. I've worked on several web projects in the past, such as http://teen2geek.com, and my portfolio is at http://krrishd.github.io, just to get an idea of what I can do in web development (not so good at the backend though).

I recently took part in a social entrepreneurship competition to prevent suicide, and I envisioned a specific app, and the idea won a grant. This app is somewhat similar to some social networks you've seen, and is a bit complex to develop for a front-end guy like me. The grant is a "micro-grant", so it isn't anything substantial, and I'm not sure if outsourcing can retain the quality necessary for such an app.

What do you think I should do?

Re: Ask HN: I'm 15, won a grant to develop a suicide prevention app, what next?

#2

Post by bartonfink » Mon, Nov 18, 2013, 4:22 PM UTC

I'm quite interested in suicide prevention, having lost several friends to suicide over the years. I'd do it pro bono. If you're interested, let me know - my e-mail is in my profile.

Re: Ask HN: I'm 15, won a grant to develop a suicide prevention app, what next?

#3

Post by d_j_s » Mon, Nov 18, 2013, 4:22 PM UTC

You may find https://www.firebase.com/ or http://www.meteor.com/ allow you to do it all on the frontend

Re: Ask HN: I'm 15, won a grant to develop a suicide prevention app, what next?

#4

Post by krrishd » Mon, Nov 18, 2013, 4:23 PM UTC

d_j_s wrote: post #3

You may find https://www.firebase.com/ or http://www.meteor.com/ allow you to do it all on the frontend

I was thinking about meteor, I'm just not sure how complex it would be to implement on a mobile app.

Re: Ask HN: I'm 15, won a grant to develop a suicide prevention app, what next?

#5

Post by rickyc091 » Mon, Nov 18, 2013, 4:31 PM UTC

Since you seem to have a good grasp of frontend, I would definitely checkout https://parse.com/products/data as a backend solution.

Re: Ask HN: I'm 15, won a grant to develop a suicide prevention app, what next?

#6

Post by noveltysystems » Mon, Nov 18, 2013, 4:40 PM UTC

How about a native app for iOS & Android with a big red button that, if they click it and confirm, puts the user immediately on the phone with a suicide prevention counselor.

Re: Ask HN: I'm 15, won a grant to develop a suicide prevention app, what next?

#7

Post by krrishd » Mon, Nov 18, 2013, 4:42 PM UTC

noveltysystems wrote: post #6

How about a native app for iOS & Android with a big red button that, if they click it and confirm, puts the user immediately on the phone with a suicide prevention counselor.

That's close to wha the idea is, except it kind of prevents suicide at a more early stage. But the idea can change, that sounds interesting as well...

Re: Ask HN: I'm 15, won a grant to develop a suicide prevention app, what next?

#8

Post by krrishd » Mon, Nov 18, 2013, 4:45 PM UTC

bartonfink wrote: post #2

I'm quite interested in suicide prevention, having lost several friends to suicide over the years. I'd do it pro bono. If you're interested, let me know - my e-mail is in my profile.

I would definitely love help! I'm still figuring out logistics, when I get to deciding on a team, I'll definitely contact you. Thanks!

Re: Ask HN: I'm 15, won a grant to develop a suicide prevention app, what next?

#9

Post by throwmeaway2525 » Mon, Nov 18, 2013, 4:51 PM UTC

krrishd wrote: post #4

d_j_s wrote: post #3

You may find https://www.firebase.com/ or http://www.meteor.com/ allow you to do it all on the frontend

I was thinking about meteor, I'm just not sure how complex it would be to implement on a mobile app.

Check the mailing list for this. There wasn't a large amount of discussion about mobile options when I last checked, but one solution seems to be what you've already listed above: Phonegap/Cordova.

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/meteor-talk

It didn't seem like there's a "perfect" solution for this yet (in any realm--it's all still evolving).

Re: Ask HN: I'm 15, won a grant to develop a suicide prevention app, what next?

#10

Post by muxxa » Mon, Nov 18, 2013, 4:51 PM UTC

My favorite anti-suicide advice is 'Never commit suicide when hungover'. It sounds subversive but I think it gets the message across by first not discounting that the other person may have valid and important problems, and then emphasizing that all states of mind are subject to improvement.

You could (carefully) curate a list of this sort of advice from people who have actually felt suicidal at one point or another and pop up a random message on demand in the app. Carefully, as most cheerful advice does not sound so good when you are depressed.