WeCare - Mental Health Care without the Stigma

Finally, after three weeks of intensive training on design thinking, I am excited to share our solution culminating in a hackathon project!

January came off to a good start for me, going on a rollercoaster ride with Innovate for Africa (IFA). IFA is an organization powered by a group of Harvard and MIT graduates who are experienced educators, entrepreneurs, and consultants with a mission to empower Africa's young talents with the right skills, confidence, and a supportive network and connecting them with start-ups. Thus, making both current and aspiring entrepreneurs have a higher probability of succeeding.

Before I continue with the breakdown of our Hackathon solution, what exactly is a hackathon? A hackathon is typically an event of a specific duration where people come together to solve problems.

In this particular case, we took a structured approach towards innovation and problem solving called Design Thinking. The image below gives an overview of what exactly design thinking is.

Now that you have all the ingredients that enabled our hackathon let's dive straight into how we came about WeCare.

---

The Pitch

The hackathon's first stage started with IFA fellows pitching the problems they would like to solve in their various communities. We all know Nigeria has more than its fair share of those.

The Mix

After everyone had pitched, we clustered the problem pitches into categories and formed a group of between 3 to 5 innovators to get to work on each broad class of problems. In my case, I had chosen to work with a group of three other exceptional IFA fellows who were interested in solving the mental health care crisis in Nigeria. After a brief team bonding session, we wasted no time in putting design thinking into action.

The Hack

We had a large problem at hand, and there are many different ways to tackle the mental health care challenge in Nigeria. But, how do we know the best approach to solve the problem? Yes, Design thinking step 1, Empathize. In my previous article, I wrote in detail how we carried out primary market research (PMR) by conducting interviews with potential customers to understand their pain points further.

After conducting a PMR and empathizing with our potential customers, we moved to step 2 of the design thinking process, Define. We worked on streamlining the problem we wanted to solve into a sizeable chunk we could bite, and that gave us direction towards brainstorming on ideas to solve this well-defined problem.

Then came step 3 of the design thinking process, Ideate. With the aid of a Stormboard, we carried out divergent thinking, thinking of the wildest possible solutions to the problem without thinking of resource constraints or any other form of constraints.

Of course, you most likely will have some limitations in carrying out any project. Thus, we carried out convergent thinking after. Here, we streamline our ideas based on realistic constraints, and as a team, we aligned our thought towards the best workable ideas. We decided to build a mobile app where users can seek different kinds of mental health care. The users can book a physical or virtual meeting with a therapist, seek group therapy, or access peer-to-peer therapy. We also thought of adding a blog feature where therapists can write blog posts on how users can deal with various mental health issues. After picking the best ideas, it was time to turn the concept into reality. Step 4 of the design thinking, as you guessed, is Prototyping. We built a high-fidelity mockup of our mobile app using Adobe Illustrator to design the graphics and Marvelapp to make the prototype. This step was exhilarating as we began to see our ideas come alive in real-time.

See the link to the full prototype here.

Feedback and Iterate

At this point, we are only left with the last step of the design thinking stage, the Test. Right? Well, not so fast. The design thinking stage is instead an iterative process as opposed to a single straight process. After testing our prototype with potential customers, we watched them use it, and we took both their verbal and non-verbal feedback. With took cues from their body language and based on how they interacted with the prototype. After noting down their feedback, we went back to implement the feedback in our prototype. This process went on about three times.

Present

When we were a bit more confident that our potential customers loved our prototype, we went ahead to present our work in the hackathon. The judging panel consisted of entrepreneurs and graduates from MIT Sloan and Harvard graduate school. Although it was a virtual presentation, it felt as real as a physical presence. The feedback and encouragement from the judges were further inspiring and we will surely be taking their feedback seriously in our next iteration of the product. Check out the project overview and pitch deck here.

Reflecting on the Process

For me, the ability to develop an idea into a high-fidelity mockup prototype in just three weeks is simply remarkable. Throughout the hackathon processes, I learned how to approach innovation in a structured way using the design thinking methodology. I conducted market research to empathize with my customers, defined my problem, and brainstormed on ideas. After which, I brought it to life through prototyping and tested it for customer satisfaction. Design thinking is a tested and repeatable approach to innovating in any given situation or challenge. Most importantly, the Hackathon has given me greater confidence to pursue big innovative ideas by inculcating the habit of ownership and innovation. Key drivers for a successful entrepreneurial career.

Finally, my team and I look forward to taking the minimum viable product to market for product testing. Yes, for further testing. The design thinking process never ends, not even when your product hits the market!