Heart Healer app a winner

Team Whiz Craft, comprising students Min-Han Kim, Fiona Lin, Mohammad Hassaan Mirza, and Kimberley Evans-Parker, competed against 140 other groups from across New Zealand and Australia, with their product Heart Healer, a customisable, chatbot app that helps users to stay healthy, happy, and productive, during the isolation of lockdown.

Their idea grew out of the work-from-home issues that Covid-19 has imposed on millions of workers globally. The lack of person to person interaction and change to normal schedules has caused distress for many employees, ultimately resulting in a loss of productivity.

With no one around from their office to check in with them and ensure they are ok, the mental health of employees can suffer, impacting on performance. The team’s solution was Heart Healer.

Team Whiz Craft’s product provides users with a virtual friend to stop them from feeling depressed and detached, and its inbuilt machine learning allows the chatbot to quickly adapt to individual users’ needs.

Heart Healer provides employees with personalised, daily interaction, providing reminders to do things like exercise, meditate, and journal feelings. It can also refer employees to trained online health care professionals if needed.

Designed with three different package options including standard, counsellor support, and extra features, Heart Healer can be fully tailored to meet individual needs.

The MYOB IT Challenge run in conjunction with the Management Consulting Club from the University of Auckland since 2015, expanded its reach this year, inviting teams from across all New Zealand and Australian universities to take part.

The contest is designed to support, grow and nurture up-and-coming tech talent, and sees business and technology skills merge as students are tasked with developing technological solutions to address real-world business issues.

“Students are challenged to determine business needs through market analysis, and propose a workable solution that can be implemented in a short period of time,” said Greg Ellis, chief executive of MYOB.

Participants from universities across both countries were given approximately a week to prepare a 5-10 minute video and one page executive summary of their solution.

After making it into the final six, Team Whiz Craft, presented Heart Healer to a panel of judges comprising Darren Smith (MYOB Chief Technology Officer), Kim Clarke (MYOB General Manager), Carol Brown (Microsoft SMB and Corporate Business Lead). The team took home a prize of $1,000.

To date, over 1,200 students have participated in the MYOB IT Challenge since its inception in 2015.

To find out more visit www.uoamcc.co.nz/events/myob-it-challenge