On Wednesday 17 May 2023 and 24 May 2023, the Happy Again! Hackathon took place. 16 enthusiastic students from multiple universities participated in 5 different teams to develop their idea for a social grief platform. After two days of hard work, the teams presented their final ideas to the jury. We were stunned by the amazing, creative, and valuable ideas the teams presented. All the teams had great ideas! You can find more about them below.

Thanks to all the people who contributed to the organization of the hackathon by giving a lecture, workshop, expert advice, or by taking part in the jury: Sanne Schoenmakers, Ellen Dreezens, Sima Ipakchian Askari, Annelies van der Ouw, Will Hurst, Kwabena Ebo Bennin, Anke Roodbergen, and Joy van Delft!

Winning team: Suppi!

“Dealing with grief together”
With their idea, they aimed to facilitate social support and help the recovery of grief by means of doing activities together. Bereaved people indicate what support they would like and what activities they would like. Supporters can indicate when they are available and what type of activities they could do. The application recommends grieving users with whom they could do certain activities and helps the bereaved to reach out to them. By means of feedback in the app, the application improves on the suggestions of activities and persons.

Memory Island

In this interactive game, users can store their memories about the deceased as objects in a house and they can work with their grief by taking care of the garden around the house. Supporters can view (shared) memories in the house and use these as conversation starters, and identify how well the bereaved user is doing by looking at the state of the garden.

Even though the last two teams did not win a prize, we think their ideas are of great value for the Happy Again! Project.

Walk and Talk

“Reliving old memories … while making new ones.”
With an app, this team wants to unburden the bereaved in starting difficult conversations and help supporters with tips on how to converse about grief. The app encourages people to walk together in nature and have face-to-face interactions instead of spending time online. Bereaved can upload memories in a diary and share this content with buddies. The buddies on the other hand are reminded to check up on the bereaved and can find conversation tips and topics to use during the walk, based on the shared memories of the bereaved.