⚡ In development

A mobile platform for the youth mental health crisis.

Project:IGYB is building a next-generation digital health solution that pairs a trained mental-health chatbot with the warmth of a real peer counselor. Always anonymous, always free, always one tap away.

Product Preview

What the app will feel like

High-fidelity wireframes of the core experience. Every screen is designed around two principles: speak human, never hold what you don't need.

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💛
Hey, we got your back.

No name. No record. Just someone who will actually listen.

Start a check in
Anonymous from this moment on

Welcome

An anonymous-by-default entry point. No sign up, no profile, no questions before you're ready.

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Step 1 of 3
How are you feeling right now?

There is no wrong answer.

StrugglingDoing well
😔 Sad or low
😰 Anxious
😶 Numb
Continue

Mood check in

A gentle 1 to 10 scale and tag chips, the same feelings meter from our intake form, redesigned for one-thumb use.

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🤖
IGYB Companion
● Active listener
Hey. I am glad you are here. What is on your mind tonight?
school is just a lot rn
That sounds heavy. Is it one specific thing, or more of a pile up?
pile up I think
Type a message...

Trained chatbot

An always-on companion trained on evidence-based active-listening, validation, and crisis-recognition patterns. Never claims to be a clinician.

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Talk to a human
Three counselors near you are open right now.
River, 11th
● Available now
Best for: school, anxiety, family
Sam, 12th
● Available in 4 min
Best for: identity, friendships
Connect anonymously

Peer counselor match

When the chatbot senses you want a person, it offers a live, trained peer who matches your concern and is open right now.

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🫶
We are right here. You are not alone.

A trained crisis responder is ready to talk with you in this moment.

988 Crisis Lifeline
Call 988
Text HOME to 741741
Stay with IGYB Companion →

Crisis safety net

If the model detects acute risk, it surfaces 988, Crisis Text Line, and an option to stay in conversation. No solo handling, ever.

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Your private reflections
This week
MTWTFSS
💭 Wed: pile up at school, talked it out
🌿 Fri: 3 minute breathing exercise
Add a note

Private reflections

Optional on-device journaling and mood tracking. Encrypted, never uploaded, never used to train anything.

Why a digital solution

Most students will not walk into an office.

Research consistently shows that 60 to 70 percent of adolescents who need mental health support never receive it. Stigma, cost, scheduling, parental notification, and the simple fear of being labelled keep students from ever raising a hand.

A trusted, anonymous, peer-led app is not a replacement for clinical care. It is a doorway. It meets students in the place they already are: their phone, at night, in a moment of quiet.

60–70%
Of teens with a mental health need never receive support
95%
Of US teens have a smartphone within arm's reach
3 AM
A peak hour for adolescent distress, when offices are closed
0
Identifying details collected in our model
How it works

A hybrid model, by design.

🤖

The Chatbot

A clinically-informed conversational model trained on active-listening protocols, validation language, and the same crisis-recognition patterns our peer counselors learn. Built on a guarded LLM with extensive red-teaming against harmful advice.

🤝

The Peer Counselor

When the conversation calls for a human, the chatbot hands off to a live, trained Project:IGYB counselor. The student opts in. The counselor never sees prior chatbot transcripts unless the student chooses to share them.

🔒

The Privacy Architecture

End-to-end encryption on conversations. On-device storage for journals and mood tracking. Zero personally identifying fields. Anonymous routing for peer matching. Privacy-first auditing baked into every design decision.

🛟

The Crisis Pathway

A two-tier safety system. Tier one: the model surfaces 988 and Crisis Text Line whenever risk signals appear. Tier two: a trained crisis-responder on the IGYB team can be paged immediately if the student chooses.

📊

The Research Layer

Fully anonymized, opt-in pattern data feeds back into research on adolescent mental health, helping the broader field learn what kinds of support actually move the needle for young people.

🌍

The Access Layer

Multilingual from day one (English, Spanish, Mandarin, Hindi, Punjabi). Designed for low-bandwidth phones. Always free. No paywall, no premium tier, no ads.

Roadmap

Where we are, where we are going.

Phase 1

Research and clinical co-design

Partnering with mental health clinicians, peer-counseling researchers, and student advisors to define the safety protocols, conversational principles, and crisis pathways before a single line of model code.

Phase 2

Closed beta with IGYB chapters

A small, supervised beta inside our existing peer-counseling network across Maryland and Virginia. Trained counselors validate the chatbot's outputs in real time. No public release yet.

Phase 3

Public release in partner schools

Rollout in our seven counties, then expansion to international chapters in India and Canada. Free, anonymous, no app store gate beyond age-appropriate safeguards.

Phase 4

Open ecosystem

Publishing our safety evaluations, our crisis-protocol playbook, and an anonymized impact dataset so other youth-led organizations can build on what we learn.

Building this with us?

We are looking for clinical advisors, student testers, designers, and researchers who care about adolescent mental health.

Get in touch