Mental health challenges affect millions, yet accessing support is often hindered by high costs, long wait times, social stigma, and the intimidating nature of clinical therapy. Many people don’t require crisis intervention or formal diagnosis—they simply need empathetic, immediate conversation to navigate daily stress, loneliness, or emotional challenges. Current solutions are either too intensive, too expensive, or too unstructured to meet this need effectively.

The mental health support landscape is polarized. Traditional therapy and teletherapy platforms remain costly and slow to access, while crisis hotlines are designed only for emergencies. Social media and forums offer community but lack safety, moderation, and professional oversight, often exposing users to harmful advice. This leaves a vast "missing middle" of individuals who need affordable, immediate, and non-clinical support.

Aura Connect is a tiered, on-demand platform that fills these gaps by offering two key services:
1. Free, instant access to Trained Peer Listeners for anonymous, text-based conversations.
2. Low-cost sessions with Certified Wellness Coaches for structured guidance via text, voice, or video.

The app includes AI-powered safeguards to detect high-risk conversations and alert human moderators, ensuring user safety.

Who Benefits:
- Users gain stigma-free, affordable, and immediate support.
- Peer Listeners and Coaches earn flexible income while contributing meaningfully.
- The community benefits from reduced strain on crisis systems and a more mentally resilient population.

I’ve witnessed loved ones struggle silently due to barriers like cost and stigma. I’ve also experienced moments where a listening ear could have made a significant difference. Everyone deserves accessible mental wellness support, and technology should facilitate human connection not complicate it.

The platform will use end-to-end encryption, a matching algorithm to pair users with suitable listeners/coaches, and a freemium business model free peer listening, subscription for coaching sessions.

One of the biggest struggles people face today is understanding what’s really on their plate. Whether it’s someone trying to lose weight, a gym-goer tracking protein, or a person managing diabetes, the lack of convenient, accurate nutrition tracking makes the journey frustrating. Current apps like MyFitnessPal or HealthifyMe require manual searching and logging, which is not only time-consuming but also error-prone—most users give up after a few weeks.

NutriSnap solves this by making nutrition tracking as simple as snapping a photo. Using advanced AI and computer vision, the app instantly analyzes any meal (home-cooked or restaurant food) and provides:

• Calories and macros (protein, carbs, fats, fiber)
• Portion size estimation
• Ingredient breakdown (useful for allergies and restrictions)
• A “health score” that explains whether the meal is balanced or needs tweaks

Beyond tracking, NutriSnap gives personalized recommendations—for example, suggesting how to increase protein intake or balance sugar levels. It integrates with fitness trackers and wearables, so users can see the bigger picture: calories consumed vs. calories burned. Gamification (streaks, challenges with friends) keeps users motivated, while partnerships with gyms, nutritionists, and food delivery apps create a scalable business model.

The target users include health-conscious individuals, fitness enthusiasts, people with medical dietary needs, and even professionals like dieticians who can use the tool to help clients. Communities benefit too—by making health awareness accessible, NutriSnap can help combat rising lifestyle diseases like obesity, diabetes, and heart conditions.

This idea matters to me because I’ve seen how confusing and discouraging diet tracking can be. People want to be healthier, but the friction of manual tracking becomes a barrier. With NutriSnap, nutrition awareness becomes effortless, accurate, and empowering—like having a personal diet coach in your pocket.

Problem Statement:

In places where people live together, such as hostels, assisted livings, or big families, medicines are often scattered, expired or left forgotten. One person may need paracetamol, but is not sure about it's availability or best before date and this creates stress and confusion. In emergencies people tend to text in group chats asking, “Does anyone have this medicine?” or, worse, use something that has expired. The outcome is money wasted, stress, and sometimes the use of unsafe, expired drugs.

Gaps in Current Solutions:

All the majority existing apps such medicine reminders or expiry reminders, are only designed for personal use. They remind a single person to take medication or notify of expiry dates. But they don’t manage group issues, like coordinating a shared first-aid kit, preventing duplicates, or borrowing safely from a neighbour.

The Solution: HealthHive

HealthHive acts like a smart, shared first-aid manager for groups, making it easy to handle medicines in a safe and organized way. Everyone in a home or hostel can see what medications are available right away with a shared inventory, which helps to prevent confusion.If someone needs a medicine quickly, they can simply use the Borrow & Share feature to send a request instead of texting in group chats where messages might get missed or overlooked. To make sure someone acts before it's too late, the app also notifies everyone in the group of expiration and low-stock alerts. HealthHive uses duplicate prevention, which identifies medications that are already on the market before another is bought, to reduce waste. Additionally, there’s an optional auto-order feature that partners with local pharmacies to handle refills and its safety layer ensures responsible sharing with dosage guidance and prescription checks.

Who Benefits:

HealthHive is designed for real-life situations where people live together and often face medicine-related challenges. Students in hostels find themselves asking for basic medicines, while families with many members may struggle to keep track of what’s inside their first-aid box. Caregivers frequently juggle the duty of monitoring numerous people's medications in settings like orphanages and assisted living facilities, which can be stressful and prone to errors. By providing them with a clear, shared view of what is available and what is running low, HealthHive streamlines this process.

It keeps staff members organised in assisted living and nursing homes and also guarantees that residents always receive their medications on time and safely rather than running the risk of missing or expired doses.Local pharmacies also benefit by becoming part of a system that provides them with regular, predictable orders. On the whole, the community gains through reduced waste, smarter use of resources, and safer practices that prevent expired or duplicate medicines from being used.

Why It Matters to Me:

I have seen friends take medicines which have expired during my stay in hostel as they did not check the expiry dates. I have also been in chats where people urgently asked for basic medicines. Having one shared, safe, and smart system would save time, money, and stress and prevent risky mistakes.

Technical Details:

HealthHive will be built as a mobile app (Android/iOS) that uses simple barcode or QR scanning to quickly add medicines to a shared inventory. This inventory is stored on a secure cloud with backend, so that only authorized members can view or edit it. The system will automatically track expiry dates, predict low stock levels and also send alerts to the entire group. For hostels or shared spaces, HealthHive can also add optional smart lockers, allowing medicines to be safely dropped off and picked up without confusion.

Introducing VitalLink—a smart, AI-powered solution designed exclusively for the elderly. We focus on keeping seniors safe, healthy, and independent, while giving families peace of mind every moment of the day

Elderly people are highly vulnerable to sudden medical emergencies such as heart attacks, strokes, or accidental falls. Many live alone and cannot always call for help when every second counts. Families often live far away, and by the time emergency services are contacted, it may be too late. These delays lead to avoidable hospitalizations, long-term complications, or even fatalities. The lack of timely monitoring creates constant stress for both seniors and their families, reducing the sense of independence and safety for older adults.

Solution:

A comprehensive AI-powered wearable device with a connected mobile app provides proactive protection and peace of mind. The wearable continuously monitors vital signs such as heart rate, oxygen levels, and movement patterns. Using machine learning, it can not only detect emergencies in real time but also predict potential risks in advance by analyzing health trends. When danger is detected, the system immediately alerts family members, nearby doctors, and ambulance services with the senior’s live location. Additional features include medicine reminders, voice-based AI assistance in local languages, and health logs for medical professionals, making care more accessible and actionable.

Target Audience:

Elderly individuals, their families, and healthcare providers.

Why it Matters to Me:

Because leveraging AI can save precious minutes during emergencies, reduce health risks, and provide seniors with independence, safety, and dignity, while offering families peace of mind.

 Gluco Vision – Non-Invasive Glucose Estimation Through Video

1. THE DREAM: Accessible Health for Everyone

One of the major growing diseases in the world,especially in India is Diabetes.Thousands and Millions of people live with diabetes or are at risk, but regular monitoring remains a challenge. The most traditional methods require finger-prick tests, which are painful, inconvenient, and costly.

For poor people who can afford the bare minimum, the financial burden is significant: a glucometer can cost between ₹800 and ₹1500, and test strips cost  between ₹15 and ₹30 each. This can reach between ₹1,000 and ₹2,500 per month for patients needing multiple daily tests. Due to the cost,most low income people frequently skip testing,which then increases the health complications such as heart diseases etc. which can even lead to death.

tThe idea with Gluco Vision is to make glucose monitoring affordable for everyone: a solution that is non-invasive, low-cost, and widely accessible, requiring only a smartphone or laptop camera.

2. The Problem: Painful, Expensiv

e, and Fragmented Monitoring

There are many problems created due to the traditional glucose monitoring:

• Invasiveness: Frequent pricking is painful and discourages adherence.
  
  
• High Cost: particularly for low income and poor people,continuous use of strips is expensive,
  
  
• Limited Insight: Finger prick tests only provide a snap
  shot of glucose levels,which are missing fluctuations throughout the day.
  
  
• Stress and Anxiety: it can lead to decrease of quality of life due to daily monitoring diseases

These limitations contribute to poor disease management, leading to hospitalization and diseases which can be avoidable.This mainly affects the poor.

3. Our Solution: Gluco Vision

Gluco Vision uses the power of photoplethysmography (PPG) which are video based  and machine learning to estimate blood glucose non-invasively, using just a camera and a smartphone.

Key Technical Highlights:

• • PPG Signal Extraction: Captures subtle color changes in fingertips from video, corresponding to blood volume changes.
    

• Signal Processing: to reduce noise from motion or lighting we apply Butterworth bandpass filtering and Savitzky-Golay smoothing
  
  
• Feature Engineering: To relate PPG signals with glucose dynamics,it computes heart rate, entropy, signal area, and other physiological features
  
  
• Data Augmentation: Generates synthetic glucose data to enhance training, combining real and simulated data for a better result .
  
  
• Machine Learning Model:To predict glucose levels with associated risk categories (normal, elevated, high),we Use Gradient Boosting Regressor 

Example Output:

 Model trained with enhanced real and synthetic data. Test MSE: 92.7
  Estimated Glucose: 142.3 mg/dL  Elevated glucose – Monitor or consult physician

Gluco Vision significantly reduces costs and makes regular monitoring feasible for low-income patients because we are eliminating the need for physical test strips.

4. Socio-Economic Impact

• • Budget friendly Healthcare: Eliminates the recurring expenses of strips and lancets.
    
    
  • Improved Compliance: encourages regular checks due to non-invasive monitoring.
    
    
  • Early Detection:reduces complications. Continuous or frequent monitoring which  allows for early intervention
    
    

• Accessible Anywhere: makes it feasible in remote or underserved areas as only a camera and internet-enabled device are required,
  
  

5. Future Roadmap

• Face and Fingertip Tracking: For easier, automated signal capture.
  
  
• Multiple Video Formats Support: Ensures compatibility across devices.
  
  
• Integration with Real-World Datasets: For better accuracy and better results we use real world datasets
  
  
• Advanced AI Models:  To improve predictive performance and accuracy we use Neural networks and deep learning
• Continuous Monitoring Potential: Enable long-term trends for proactive healthcare.