[Project Submission] You okay? Meet Vish AI, your mental health companion #38
Description
🌍 Problem Statement
Despite growing global awareness, depression, loneliness, and emotional distress remain critical and under-addressed public health issues, especially among teenagers and working professionals. Current support systems (e.g., therapy, peer groups, helplines) are often inaccessible or insufficient in providing consistent emotional care. There is a pressing need for an accessible, empathetic, and always-available companion to support emotional well-being.
According to statistics:
1. Globally
- Over 280 million people worldwide suffer from depression (~5% of the global population) [WHO, 2021].
- 14% of adolescents (10–19 years) have a diagnosable mental disorder [WHO, 2021].
- 23% of the global population report feeling lonely “a lot” in a typical day [Gallup World Poll, 2023].
2. India
- WHO estimates ~5% of Indians suffer from depression (~70 million people).
- 53% of urban Indians report stress interfering with daily life; 25% feel depressed or hopeless frequently [Ipsos India, 2024].
- Among adults aged 45+, ~13.3% report moderate to severe loneliness [LASI, 2020].
- Among students, up to 30–50% report symptoms of depression or anxiety in some university studies.
3. US
- 8.3% of adults experienced a major depressive episode in 2021 [NIMH, 2022].
- Among 18–25-year-olds, depression affects 18.6%, and among adolescents (12–17), the rate is ~20.1%.
- 30% of adults report feeling lonely weekly; 10% experience loneliness daily [APA Survey, 2023].
🛠️ Your Solution
- I am using a GenAI assistant with RAG and LangChain from azd templates.
- I have implemented RAG to include resources like books on spirituality and mental health. This will give the chatbot more depth in this domain. More content can be easily added in the data folder.
- I have added langchain for conversation memory. It will give the chatbot memory so that it can remember past conversations and will have a context of the situation. making it feel personalized and human.
- My goal was to create an AI companion that will try to have an emotional connection with the user, as not everyone is comfortable sharing with their friends or family. The combination of RAG and LangChain ensures the bot can be both emotionally supportive and informationally rich.
🚀 Repository & Demo
- GitHub repo: https://github.com/ToshikSoni/JS-AI_VishAI (Made a new repo for the project submission)
- Demo Video:
Demo.mp4
- Study Jam: MLSA SPSU (Troop Leader)
🙌 Call for Upvotes
Even in today's modern world, millions of people are struggling with depression, loneliness, and emotional burnout. not everyone has friends with whom they are comfortable sharing their feelings. Developing this bot is a small attempt from my side to bridge the gap and make someone's life a little bit better.
Don't forget to leave a like :)