Kai Koerber was a junior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School when a gunman murdered 14 students and three staff members there on Valentine’s Day in 2018. Seeing his peers - and himself - struggle with returning to normal, he wanted to do something to help people manage their emotions on their own terms.
While some of his classmates at the Parkland, Florida, school have worked on advocating for gun control, entered politics or simply took a step back to heal and focus on their studies, Koerber’s background in technology - he’d originally wanted to be a rocket scientist - led him in a different direction: to build a smartphone app.
Like many of his peers, Koerber said he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder for a “very long time” and only recently has it gotten a little better. “The notion of mindfulness being a solo activity or something that’s confined to sitting in your room breathing is something that we’re very much trying to dispel,” Koerber said.
To use Joy, you simply speak into the app. The AI is supposed to recognize how you are feeling from your voice, then suggest short activities. The iPhone app is available for a $8 monthly subscription, with a discount if you subscribe for a whole year. It’s a work in progress, and as it goes with AI, the more people use it, the more accurate it becomes.
“The challenge is if you as a user feel like it’s not really representing what you think your current state is like, that’s an issue,” he said. “There should be some mechanism by which that feedback can go back.”
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Parkland school shooting survivor develops Joy, an app built on AI that helps people healKai Koerber was a junior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School when a gunman murdered 14 students and three staff members on Valentine’s Day in 2018.
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Parkland school shooting survivor develops Joy, an app built on AI that helps people healKai Koerber was a junior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School when a gunman murdered 14 students and three staff members on Valentine’s Day in 2018
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Parkland school shooting survivor develops Joy, an app that helps people healKai Koerber was a junior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School when a gunman murdered 14 students and three staff members on Valentine’s Day in 2018
Read more »
Parkland school shooting survivor develops Joy, an app built on AI that helps people healKai Koerber was a junior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School when a gunman murdered 14 students and three staff members on Valentine’s Day in 2018.
Read more »
Parkland school shooting survivor develops Joy, an app built on AI that helps people healKai Koerber was a junior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School when a gunman murdered 14 students and three staff members on Valentine’s Day in 2018.
Read more »
Parkland school shooting survivor develops Joy, an app built on AI that helps people healKai Koerber was a junior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School when a gunman murdered 14 students and three staff members on Valentine’s Day in 2018.
Read more »