Fighting Depression with Learn IT girl

I am a person who loves meeting new people, discussing tech, overflowing ideas and am a Fooodie (of Course). So, it was in March this year (2017), that I got to know about Learn It Girl and the concept seemed too good i.e you can work on your own idea under the guidance of a mentor. Sounds great? Yes, indeed! So, I contacted them and asked about the next edition registration (this is the 3rd edition), and they were too humble to answer all my queries.

It was in August, that the registrations started and the only idea I could think of at that time was regarding depression. This is no less than a disease and needs addressing.

And hence, I brainstormed into how I can approach this problem and give some efficient results. I thought of developing a game, a maze game, where users would be directed to some motivational video and quotes every time they get stuck in the maze. I went ahead with this idea, and worked out a timeline for 3 months.

The Application

• Regarding the application, there are two fields which keep a lot of importance:

1. The project Idea
2. The timeline for the 3 months of the program. You can learn more about it here.

Wohoo! One of 129, I was over cloud nine.

The application is itself a learning and self evoking process. It lets you brainstorm an idea that you are passionate about, a technology stack that interests you or a specific language that you want to learn. It makes you focus on the things that matter to you.

So, after the results for Learn IT Girl were announced in October, I was super excited to work on the project and the tech stack that I was passionate about. And I was on cloud nine when I got to know that only 129 girls from all over the world were selected for this program and I was one of them. But, this was just the beginning of the breath taking journey that laid ahead :)

In this twelve week program, I worked with my mentor to develop a Django based web application to classify tweets and analyze depression using Machine learning.

The Challenges

The first and foremost challenge was the idea itself. I initially had in mind the idea to fight depression with game developed in Django, but it had to be tweaked. So, we researched and then decided to make a tweet sentiment analysis system using Machine learning and Django as framework.

The next challenge was to work out the timeline for the entire project again, but this time more practically and clearly. So, I proposed a timeline to my mentor and he suggested the changes. This process continued until we had a proper schedule for those 12 precious weeks keeping in mind all the factors.

Working

After we crafted out our timeline, we worked on tasks and discussed them every day or two. Here’s how we worked:

• First few weeks, say 5, we worked on machine learning basics and how it can be implemented, so that I have a solid grasp of the concepts.
• Then, we went on to work on the project, further dividing it into tasks like:

1) Getting data from Twitter using tweepy

2) Pre-processing the data

3) Applying different machine learning algorithms in order to find the one which gives the best accuracy

4) Working on the website to show the relative rates of depression

After the completion of the program, comes the evaluation time, when the LITG team evaluates your work and tells whether you passed the program or failed. And, I got a certificate on completion of the evaluation.

This experience didn’t only help me become stronger technically, but also taught me the art of working together, respecting each other’s time and commitments, and coming together to work out problems. I’m really grateful to Learn It, Girl for this opportunity and would like to contribute to the initiative in any way possible.

Keep calm and code on!