ThyroPal aims to help thyroid patients to participate more actively in social life again. Those affected often suffer from symptoms that make this active participation difficult or even impossible. And there are quite a few of these patients. According to the German Thyroid Center, around one in three people in Germany can be diagnosed with pathological changes to the thyroid gland.
But from the beginning.
The No-Code for Impact Scholarship is a cooperation between VisualMakers and Digital Optimists as well as numerous tech and network partners. With the scholarship, we want to show how quickly and easily business ideas can be implemented today with the help of no- and low-code. At the same time, we want to provide a platform for the many great impact ideas out there. The only conditions for the scholarship: the idea must contribute to one of the UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals and the team must agree that the development of the application will be publicly monitored. The grant has a total value in kind of €60,000.
The package consists of the development of the app as a minimum viable product (MVP) and further support over the course of a year. In addition, we will help ThyroPal achieve greater reach with various marketing activities.
Applicants had until May 31 to submit their ideas: Over 200 applications were received during this period! In the end, we invited the three most convincing ideas to a pitch and the finalists then had to answer questions from the jury. You can listen to all the pitches and the subsequent Q&A session in the Digitale Optimisten podcast. But as always, there can only be one winner in the end: Stefanie and ThyroPal were convincing on all levels and were able to secure the victory.
First of all, it had to be an impact project. In other words, a project that is intended to have a positive impact on society or the environment. Applicants had to specify which of the UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals they would like to contribute to. In addition, it was also very important what role the software can play in solving the problem and how realistic it is to implement an MVP of this software as part of the scholarship.
ThyroPal was able to score points here. Not only is it a very large and yet tangible problem that is being tackled, but the app is the core of the solution and is easy to implement with no-code tools.
ThyroPal is a companion app that aims to support thyroid patients in their daily lives. The app is designed to help patients better understand their symptoms, improve their medication and promote communication with doctors. This should enable those affected to participate more actively in social life again.
There are over 10 million patients in Germany who suffer from various forms of thyroid disease. And although many thyroid conditions can now be treated very easily with medication, medical care is often not optimal, which can lead to those affected suffering from avoidable symptoms.
Stefanie Kruse, the brains behind ThyroPal, is affected herself. She is a Hashimoto's thyroiditis patient. This is an autoimmune disease that causes various symptoms that make everyday life considerably more difficult. These include tiredness, physical exhaustion, memory and concentration problems, lack of resilience, lack of motivation and drive and more.
She shares her experience in this LinkedIn post.
Due to a lack of care, many patients feel alone with their suffering. To counteract this, they organize themselves in online forums (e.g. on Facebook or Reddit) where they discuss symptoms and possible solutions. However, there are no medical professionals there, just other sufferers. As a result, sometimes questionable and even potentially dangerous advice is exchanged. Sensitive medical data is also shared there.
The ThyroPal app is intended to be the digital companion for thyroid patients. The app is designed to answer the most frequently asked questions, provide basic knowledge about the thyroid gland and improve communication between patients and their doctors. This is achieved with a mixture of educational content and the opportunity to better understand their own blood values and track symptoms. This means that patients are no longer reliant on dubious information from the internet.
Through an overview and improved understanding of their blood values, patients should also be able to recognize earlier if, for example, the dose of medication is not optimal, so that they can contact their doctors. This collaboration with medical staff is intended to optimize medication care and improve patients' symptoms.
In the first version of the app, patients will be able to enter or even scan their blood values and medication doses. They will then receive graphical representations and textual interpretations of the data. Based on medical information and the rules derived from it, ThyroPal should be able to recognize medication doses that are too high or too low based on these blood values. It should be possible to generate a report as a PDF so that medical staff can work with it.
In addition, the app's MVP is intended to provide patients with serious and reliable information on all aspects of the thyroid gland.
Stefanie Kruse is a freelance UX designer who is committed to digital sustainability and develops responsible and sustainable digital products together with impact companies and NGOs.
"I am passionate about developing sustainable digital products that inspire a climate-friendly lifestyle, such as sustainable shopping, green energy, sharing economy, e-mobility and sustainable banking - while helping companies transform their business models to integrate profitability and sustainability."
As a product designer, Stefanie has of course already created the first Figma click dummies from ThyroPal.
We are looking forward to working with Stefanie and hope that with the first No-Code for Impact scholarship we can have a positive impact on the lives of many people with No-Code.
To see the current status of ThyroPal development, take a look at our Build-in-Public Timeline.
