5 Reasons I Loved My First Mental Health Hackathon (Even Though I Didn’t Win)

I found a hackathon focused on the intersection of mental health and technology rewarding, even though my team wasn’t a finalist.

It was a Friday night, and I had to make a choice between staying in for the weekend or going outside of my comfort zone. Here’s why I’m glad I pushed past my fear of attending my first hackathon and decided last-minute to drive down to Yale HackMentalHealth 2019.

1. I felt valuable to my team regardless of my background

At Yale HackMentalHealth, there was a true sense of valuing what every person brought to the table. The interdisciplinary approach for judging the event cultivated this atmosphere — clinical impact, viability, technological quality, business value, and product excellence were all equally considered. My team met for the first time at the hackathon, and came from all over the US. Within this diverse team, my personal experience dealing with mental health was valued as much as my coding experience.

2. I had meaningful conversations

Although I have personal experience with mental health challenges, I am still grappling with the role of mental health in my life and in our society. In discussions with other participants, I wrestled with these issues. We talked about how mental health discourse is often centered on learning personal coping skills. While I’ve found Dialectical Behavior Therapy and my faith to be pillars for my wellness, I’m also interested in the systemic issues at play. During another conversation we questioned how one can recognize and react to the societal systems, intergenerational trauma, and unjust oppression that are embedded into the current realm of “mental health”. Without attending HackMentalHealth, I never would have received this mentorship from prominent mental health activists.

3. I challenged myself to learn new skills (and recognized some I already had)

During HackMentalHealth, I experienced an environment that promoted learning. The keynote speakers taught me about the ecosystem of technology in the mental health field. Then, Google and Twilio offered technical workshops. For the purposes of my project, I downloaded and went through tutorials to work with the Adobe XD program for the first time. Yale HackMentalHealth also provided lightning talks, a short hour-long seminar, on topics ranging from ethics to engineering. I particularly enjoyed the “AbleTo: Ethics of Mental Health + Tech” discussion about the principles of consent within the types of technologies we were working on building. And while my team was working, mentors would come by with years of psychiatric, business, and/or technical experience. The mentors were incredibly humble, eagerly listened to our project, and offered targeted, helpful advice. Additionally, I discovered that I had more skills to bring to my team than I had realized. For example, developing a website for my church last year turned out to be on-the-ground training I could use to build a site for my HackMentalHealth team.

4. I was respected by the organizers

The leadership not only organized an event that dealt with the topic of mental health, but they also organized an event that prioritized mental well-being. From dog therapy to meditation sessions to encouraging a healthy amount of sleep, HackMentalHealth leaders took the time to make sure the experience itself fostered self-care practices. The organizers also displayed careful attention to detail, such as having professionals extensively outline the problem, background, treatment, case studies, and current barriers in the three mental health challenges of suicide, substance use, and data. Personally, I think this is the type of organizing that needs to become standard practice.

5. I started important work and won’t stop

My team, S.M.A.R.T. Insights, focused on addressing the communication gap between service providers and service users, specifically between the first and second appointments. By focusing on individually chosen, professionally approved S.M.A.R.T. (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, timely) goals, we aimed to motivate service users to continue patient-centered treatment. My team’s project didn’t make it to the finals, but I am still proud of our work and the camaraderie we shared. Throughout the hackathon, I learned that my voice can have a real influence if I focus on a concrete project. I was so motivated by the presentations of the finalists, that I left feeling driven to keep working and optimistic about the future of this field.

So, while it can be easy to come to a hackathon hoping to win, I want to suggest that prioritizing the experience itself can lead to a more fulfilling and collaborative approach. To me, one thing was clear by the end of Yale HackMentalHealth: more voices are needed to shape the future of mental health technologies.

Kati Young is a Science in Society, Molecular Biology & Biochemistry, and College of Integrative Sciences major at Wesleyan University.