[This is a sponsored article with the Singapore Government Partnerships Office.]
Hackathons often spark brilliant ideas that can contribute to a better nation. However, often, they come out before making a real difference.
But in Singapore, Build Good trying to change that trajectory.
Build for Good is a citizen engagement program by Open Government Products (OGP) that aims to empower Singaporeans to make the city better in their own way through their monthly programs and accelerators.
Providing a safe space for startups and innovators to test, refine, and scale their social impact projects, and with mentorship, resources, and a network of partners, small-start ideas can grow into initiatives that truly benefit communities across Singapore.
To date, Build for Good has organized four hackathons, with more than 300 participants creating solutions for the public good, from improving accessibility to strengthening social support networks.
Facilitating care by creating a citizen
Many of these projects have moved beyond the prototype stage, supported by the Build for Good accelerator program, which works with selected teams to refine their ideas, conduct user testing and test sustainable operating models.
This includes CareCompassis a free app designed to help primary caregivers, especially those supporting patients with dementia, in navigating the often overwhelming world of caregiving.
Invented during the 2024 Build Good hackathon, CareCompass makes access to important services easier: users provide a few details about their care recipient, and CareCompass generates personalized guides tailored to their needs.
The AI-powered app aggregates key information, from available funding to relevant local services, helping caregivers quickly find support and resources that can make day-to-day care more manageable.
It is a solution that is closely related to the group, as each member has been the primary or secondary caregiver, or has been heavily involved in family care.
For Joshua Gei, one of the founders of CareCompass, the experience was particularly vivid. When her grandfather suffered a stroke in 2020, she struggled with the childcare system.
Upon discharge, our family faced challenges in coordinating care. Nurses, social workers, and doctors all had different areas of knowledge, from planning home renovations to understanding which grants worked. Handling all of this while processing emotionally was overwhelming.
Joshua Gei
After meeting as a team during the Build for Good hackathon, Joshua and his co-founders quickly realized that they all faced similar maintenance challenges—and that’s when the light bulb moment came.
“We realized that we all had the same issues—fragmented information, massive organization, emotional exhaustion,” he recalled. “That’s when we knew that we weren’t just creating an action plan, but we were solving problems that our families were struggling with.”
The resources and guidance provided during the hackathon were essential in turning the group’s idea into a viable solution.
The Build for Good program produced by CareCompass has partnered with the Singapore Government Partnerships Office (SGPO) to encourage deeper citizen-government partnerships. Through this partnership, SGPO connected stakeholders with subject matter experts across government agencies, helping groups gain a clear understanding of the issues they were facing.
For CareCompass, this meant gaining access to the Agency for Integrated Care (AIC) and a referral to DementiaSG, allowing the team to validate predictions, assess factors, and design an action plan for the actual needs of the caregiver.
“AIC and DementiaSG provided access to the backend data and connected us with the primary caregivers,” Joshua shared.
With their continued and proven concept, CareCompass was eventually selected for the Build for Good Accelerator program, receiving S$20,000 in funding to develop, test, and implement their solution.
Community partners such as Mindfull Community have engaged 20 caregivers to provide feedback on the platform, and there are ongoing pilot programs with grassroots teams in Bradley Heights and Punggol.
This partnership ensured that CareCompass is based on real caregiver needs, complements existing resources, and evolves based on both grassroots and digital feedback.
Joshua Gei
Since its launch in Nov 2024, CareCompass has gathered around 500 registered users and over 2,000 total users, and continues to expand its reach.
The platform is also integrated with Heart beatanother solution developed during the same hackathon aimed at addressing the isolation of the elderly, creating a holistic caring ecosystem.
By integrating Heartbeat’s health features, including daily check-ins, reminders, and engagement tools, CareCompass allows users to more effectively monitor their recipients’ overall health.
Bridging gaps in mental health support
While CareCompass addresses the practical challenges of caregiving, another group at the same hackathon focused on empowering individuals in their mental health support through BAD.
The founders of this forum are all too familiar with the frustrations of mental health discontinuity—none more so than Richard Xiong.
Just after four months of treatment, his therapist moved overseas. “I had to start this program again,” he recalled. “Months of waiting for a new appointment and talking and the painful experience felt like opening old wounds. It often felt like taking two steps forward, then one step back.”
But Richard is not alone. Many patients in public health care experience changes in therapists due to dropouts or reassignments, forcing them to start over again and again.
He saw how widespread the issue was during “Build for Good’s “Human Library” session, where participants interacted with mental health professionals and discussed the challenges Singaporeans face today.
Through these conversations, he and the rest of the EBI team realized that mental health—despite being a growing concern in Singapore’s fast-paced society, especially among the youth—remains suppressed by stigma and system-based gaps.
Therefore, they created an app that helps users express and process their feelings through AI-powered commands, offering news writing, chat, or voice-based interaction, including an assistant that can even chat in Singlish.
The EBI summarizes key concerns and coping strategies in the entries, allowing users to track their progress and share information with mental health professionals.
By combining guided meditation with personal insights, the platform addresses weaknesses in the therapist-patient relationship and gaps in support between sessions or across providers.
To bring the action plan to life, the team similarly benefited from the joint support of the OGP and SGPO, which not only provided training but also contacts with experts in the mental health field.
These relationships helped the team understand real-world challenges, validate assumptions, and shape the app to address the needs of end-users.
Initially, EBI was released in open public beta during the 2024 hackathon, where members of the public were invited to register and use the platform for free. The team went on to be selected for the 2024 Build for Good Accelerator program, as well as CareCompass.
Following the beta, which involved nearly 300 participants, the group’s focus has shifted from direct public advocacy to clinical validation, with the aim of demonstrating the effectiveness of EBI in a healthcare setting.
The team is currently conducting a clinical trial in collaboration with local healthcare providers, focusing on patients with brain communication disorders such as IBS.
The power of the field extends beyond mental health. It positions itself as a comprehensive mental health tool across the healthcare sector, especially in areas where psychological support plays an important role but remains underserved. The team believes EBI can help bridge this gap, supporting patients at scale while providing clinicians with better data to track progress over time.
Reflecting on their journey, Richard sees collaboration as important: “In many ways, I see founders like us as the seeds of change, and the government as the water and sunlight that helps those seeds grow.”
“Without the ingenuity and motivation of the community, there would be no seeds to plant; but without the structure, trust, and nurturing environment provided by the government, those seeds would never take root.”
You too can make a difference
Both CareCompass and EBI demonstrate how citizen-led innovation creates meaningful social impact when supported by systematic initiatives such as Build for Good.
As the EBI team puts it: “We believe that when it comes to solving complex social problems, success depends on shared ownership between the public and the government.”
As the groups behind these programs, you, too, can make a difference.
Do you have an idea that can create positive change? The Singapore Government Partnerships Fund created by the SGPO supports community-driven initiatives. Read more about SGPF here, and explore other solutions through Build for Good here.
Featured Image Credit: Build Well
