2gether
I took part in a hackathon in San Francisco in 2012 to take my mind away from not having a place to stay that weekend. I wanted to build something quick and easy.
At this point, and I think this is still true today, that despite there being so many ways to connect with people around the world, people still face a lot of loneliness and mental struggles alone during low moments. There are no proper ways or protocols to tell your friends or family members that you need them. That you want to talk in that moment, or spend time in person. Single people often resort to using dating apps in such moments, but this isn't right for most people. In fact, it isn't even the solution for single people, since loneliness doesn't always mean interest in being on a date.
So I made an app called 2gether that would let you discreetly pick from the list of your Facebook friends you want to spend time right now, over a call or in person. If they also use the app, and anytime in the recent past have also identified you as someone they want to talk to, you both get notified immediately. Yes, like in a mobile phone dating app (Tinder wasn't around at this time, so this notification pattern was quite novel when I thought of it).
