Team Internships at GCC

Challenge Statement for Battle Buddy:  

1. Because of stigmas and barriers to seeking mental health, there is a gap of knowledge that needs to be addressed through education and marketing/branding to combat individual and societal stereotypes.

2. The accessibility of Battle Buddy needs to be considered, especially for individuals with physical, mental or other limitations.

3. Battle Buddy has the potential to positively impact the lives of veterans, but it is not clear how the app can be marketed to reach the largest number of users. 

4. Users are not incentivized to regularly return to the app in order to create good habits and make consistent and long-term progress on improving a user’s mental health.

5. Battle Buddy does not currently have an option for full customization of visuals and the virtual human or a user profile that could be used to cater specialized support to certain vulnerable demographic groups (i.e. women, LGBTQ, homeless) and connect users to individuals with similar experiences.

6. Battle Buddy has limited features to connect to in-person help and does not leverage resources from existing veteran organizations and services.

Understanding the Context

Background research provides us the outline for what we know and don't know about our industry. This will guide your plan for finding better solutions based on the cultural, social, and economic situation the company is currently in. Addiitionaly, company histories help us understand why certain communities are not active participants or common targets for recruitment and retention. To find innovate solutions to this issue, we need to know the context of this problem, or in other words:

• What do we already know?

• What do we need to know more about or understand better?

• What are the concepts, events, people, places, etc. that are involved?

• How are these concepts related to one another and/or my issue?

We also can look at our areas in terms of the research:

• Cognitive processing: how does your population perceive your company's services or values? How does their automatic thinking impact your strategies?
• Health and Wellness obstacles: what illnesses, disorders, and health issues may impact how our community interacts with the company/product?
• Generational obstacles : how has family and social history shaped community understanding in your challenge?
• Financial obstacles: how does money or economic inequality shape community engagement with your company?
• Media Representation/Image: what does social media or communications around your company/product tell the community?
• Educational obstacles: how does educational inequality and prejudice shape your community's engagement with the product or company?

Use Wikipedia to:

• Get references on a topic at the bottom of the article
• Learn more general information about a topic including events, timelines, and important people
• Explore how one topic is connected to another through links on the article