emmanuelbraza

[emmanuelbraza]

Serenity

The importance of mental health care in the Philippines is not yet well recognized by the locals, but the government has taken steps to create laws that take care of those matters. Luckily,  on the USeP, mental health has been one of their priorities, taking care of their students by providing aid such as much-needed breaks after exams and mental health examinations free of charge.

My app “Serenity Space” uses that same idea. It is a community-based and managed app that allows users to join sessions that allow them to share their feelings with a group whose situation is not far off from theirs.

Hiring professionals on this matter is not really cheap. The aim of this app is to make mental health care accessible and affordable. By making the sessions not only hosted by professionals but also by normal citizens with enough knowledge to host, it utilizes public spaces like parks and schools as opposed to private offices to reduce the costs of bookings. Also,  the base app is completely free; there is no price given to anyone who needs immediate mental care.

One of its biggest features is the bio-matching system, where users with similar problems are grouped together into one session so that they can easily relate to each other more effectively and without stigma.

It is an app that makes mental care more accessible and more community-based than others. Although not all features of this app are explained here well, my actual presentation made its points more clear and relatable to its audience.

At the end, small insights and personal experiences were given throughout the class by my professor. He stated that mental health care is not really affordable for most people in this country nor treated as a serious matter, but apps that give importance to simple things and serve a huge audience are greatly needed.

My idea was later approved, and I was very happy. Although it was fun, I really hope I won’t do that again in the near future.

[emmanuelbraza]

Security Brick, Part 2

As I waited for my turn to present my pitch, I watched and listened to my professor’s insights on my classmates’s pitches. So far, only one of the classmates passed and had his idea approved. Then I realized I had no proper visualization of my device; I had no prototype. Quickly, I sketched my device on my art book. With its features and design, it was looking rough, but it was enough to serve its purpose.

Nervously, I approached the center of the room as it was my turn to pitch. It was great that the pitching on that day was set in our room as opposed to the AVR, where the audience was mixed of students between other sections. I was glad that on my presentation, only my peers were present, saving me from having far more trouble introducing myself to total strangers.

As previously said, my idea came from an article that informs people on how they can modify their USB charging cable to only use its charging feature and not data transfer. It was a basic idea that made me want to try and create another improved and commercialized version of it. The “Security Brick" is an attachment that is lodged into the base of the phone and connected to its charging port. The brick itself has LED indicators with which you can identify what feature of the cable is being used; if it is used only to charge, the charging LED would light up; if it is data transferring, the equivalent LED would turn on. The purpose of this is to identify the state of the phone with one glance so that you will be able to identify if your device is transferring data without your knowledge.

It also comes with an app with the same name; the app allows the user to track the locations of the charging outlets the device previously used and a system that indicates how much data is transferred to those areas. The business model that I proposed was the sale of the device and the freemium model of the app. And with that, my presentation ended.

The insights my professor gave were truly helpful. I had a hunch that my idea was not novel or uncommon enough. He gave some examples of similar devices that grant those features without them being the highlight of those devices. He encouraged me to choose another idea and to try to do further research on those.

In the end, my idea was rejected, but it was helpful, and I will try again not long after.

[emmanuelbraza]

Security Brick, Part 1

On the first week of the preparation for the idea pitch, I was looking for ideas I could improve and potentially present. I looked for inspirations on different media platforms, such as tech pages on Facebook and related ideas on YouTube; however, none of these really piqued my interest, and I also did not try to find out if those ideas were novel, like the autonomous drone delivery system that utilizes drones as a medium for transporting items to the customers, which was already researched to some extent.

While browsing through different articles and discussions on the internet, I found an interesting piece. It was about modifying a USB charging cable to only charge the device and not transfer data, basically closing off the device from potential data leaks or theft. The idea was, by severing specific connectors for data transfer on the cable and only leaving the connectors for the charging feature in his argument, that people can easily be robbed of personal data on their phones while using public electrical outlets that may be connected to a device that is used to steal.

Granted that there is a built-in feature on the majority of devices that manages data transfer using charging cables, that when the user's device is connected to another device, it will automatically remind the user, asking permission if the user allows the device for data transfer. However,  I quickly found out that those detection features can be easily avoided by competent hackers and third-party programs, raising the possibility of data theft without the user's knowledge while using public outlets.

With that, I decided to use this information for my first pitch, and the device that I will present will be named the “Security Brick” with its added improvements and features.

[emmanuelbraza]

3 Idiots

(Reflection)

I have seen this movie before, in the past I never really finished it, to my knowledge “3 idiots” is a movie about a group of friends enrolled in a prestigious Indian engineering university, the movie revolves around the three friends; Rancho, Farhan, and Raju the story follows a down memory lane plotline, where the characters Farhan and Raju recalls all of their memorable times together in college with Rancho, who taught them to think differently among the others.

Describing the 3 characters

Rancho – for me is the most intelligent character out of the trio, Rancho to me is a person that thinks outside the box regularly, it shows that he is not afraid of asking uncommon questions, that even professors get stumbled upon, and always finding out different new and creative answers to a problem, he is an embodiment of not following the common thought process of everybody else.

Farhan – clearly Farhan excels in a different field other than pure intelligence, Farhan is a dedicated and passionate photographer, even though he is enrolled at the Indian engineering college, Farhan was not actually willing to enter the university and was only forced by his parents.

Raju – came from a financially unstable family, he is always thinking of what will happen if ever fails in attaining higher education, and betraying his family’s expectations from him, I personally connected myself with Raju, his anxiety and fear towards making mistakes and being cautious with everything makes me feel sympathetic towards Raju.

Whose character would you want to be?

Throughout the movie I really found myself greatly interested in Rancho and his ideas to solve different scenarios and problems, his ability to persuade and inspire people around him and advocating his love in finding and discovering different solutions to a problem, positivity and high intellect is what made Rancho my favorite character in the movie.

[emmanuelbraza]

Thinking outside the box

Feb 4, 2024 (Synchronous class)

At the start of the 2nd semester of my journey as a college student in the university, upon receiving the schedule of my classes I quickly scanned through all of my subjects in this semester, one of them was the subject “Technopreneurship”, my immediate impression on this subject was that it may be related to my previous subject in high-school, which was “Entrepreneurship”, the first idea that came into my mind was that this subject focuses on the idea of selling or pitching a product to a specified audience, and coming up of ways to earn money, however upon the first week of the Technopreneurship course I have learned that there is a lot of different skills that is needed to excel at this field, the curriculum which is based on the Australian Technopreneurship curriculum was adopted here at the university, on the purpose of producing excellent graduates, one of the issues that the professor shared to us was that the region which is where most promising students were developed and produced were being hired and transported to another region to work and share their skills, meanwhile the region where the university that nurtured those students were left with none, this, according to my professor was considered as unfair, my own interpretation of that information was that there were a lot of students that have the capacity and potential to become more than just an employee instead the companies that hired them will only take advantage of their skills to make their own respected companies grow meanwhile the region that directly produced this graduates are left with nothing.

          Understanding the goal of making the region recognized by becoming one of the best producers of IT professionals in the country, the professor then gave us an activity, on the screen he presented an image that consists of 9 dots, then he instructed us to connect all of the dots with only four strokes and without lifting the pen, hearing this instruction, I quickly tried to find the solution of this puzzle by attempting it multiple times in different various approaches, then on of my classmates presented her solution, at first look I immediately noticed how her strokes were outside the bounds of the image, but the solution was valid, and with her explanation that she solved the puzzle by “thinking outside the box”, and quite literally, I realized how my own personal way of thinking was way more grounded and restricted, I have made assumptions of what rules I should follow, and her solution only followed three; connect the dots, use four strokes and finally never raise the pen, in short she knew that by thinking outside the box she will be able to solve the puzzle, personally that was a bit enlightening and an eye opener for me, it truly shows how a person can learn from someone else’s example.