This app project won first place in InnovateGC, a week-long social impact and innovation competition at Grinnell College. Together with my teammates Lily, Kaycie, and Jinny, we pitched a mobile app that provides information about Title IX, outlines available resources, and encourages appropriate help-seeking.

We are currently working with the Title IX office at Grinnell College to implement the app. Through talking to administrators and students, we hope to create a preventive application that clarifies misconceptions and encourages appropriate help-seeking.

We also hope to incorporate information based on experiences of related offices that might be useful to students of different demographics. For example, we will talk to the Office of International Students Affairs to understand issues commonly faced by international students. We also plan to meet Residence Life to create preventional content and improve related features. We have also been in correspondence with campus student groups that advocate against sexual violence and promote sexual respect.

Here are four key features we are working on:

Chat proxy to campus/nationwide chat services

We are working to create a chat interface that connects to existing chat counseling services, both on campus and nationwide. Since the app will not require login, we hope this feature can make help-seeking more convenient and anonymous. 

Interactive stories

Some forms of sexual violence are so common and normalized that people don’t realize they shouldn’t have happened in the first place, such as stalking or sexual harassment after drinking. Through self-paced stories created by student artists, we hope to depict non-triggering situations that students might experience in their day-to-day lives, and raise awareness regarding these normalized forms of sexual violence.

Push notifications around campus-wide events

Besides providing information, we hope the app can be more proactive in preventing sexual violence on campus. Therefore, we plan on working with admins to push reminders before campus-wide substance occasions, such as 10/10 or Alice.

Informative and user-friendly interface

We plan to work with different campus organizations to organize information and create guides targeting different user needs. The interface will also be intuitive and easy to use.

We also plan to conduct on-campus programming to promote the app and maximize its preventional function. For instance, we plan to work with Student Health and Wellness for tabling, providing incentives for.students to download the app.