Actualizing the Humanistic Vision through the Scientific and Technological Vision?!

• Are you enthused by Open Collaborative Citizen Science, the UN's Sustainable Development Goals and/or Mental Health?
• Can we leverage the intrinsic motivation of mental health communities for collective intelligence and action?
• Can we empower Students as Changemakers with Dynamic Digital Drivers to solve Global Challenges, where they apply what they learn on projects with local communities?

The smile of the simplest achievement in the face of a child with mental health difficulties and the reflection of joy magnified in the parent’s visage is the closest thing to magic I have ever experienced. Today I stand on the shore of my project with an air of excitement about surfing its range of possibilities and plunging its depths of reach with the hope of leveraging collective intelligence of the scientific community, citizens & YOU!

My project aims at building an inclusive open digital library ecosystem and citizen science framework that unites scientists, stakeholders from different disciplines and the citizens/public alike for open collaborative citizen science that spans geographic, cultural and disciplinary borders syncing learning, science and societal needs. To this end will be deployed:

MindLogger (https://mindlogger.org/) is an open source data collection platform & app that makes it easy for anyone (without prior programming or design experience) to build and configure customized mobile apps (iOS and Android) for their research projects in any discipline. It has many user response methods (survey lists and tables, slider bars, audio, photos, drawing etc.). It could replace or complement current classic methodologies to build & administer digital assessments & new activities on any topic, such as surveys, quizzes, diaries or cognitive tasks. These activities will appear in a customized mobile app for use by study participants, patients, students etc.

As an illustrative example, I'm building an autism digital diary where parents not only monitor their children's symptoms and behaviours but also add their ideas, insights and what they find rewarding and challenging on a daily basis. MindLogger is currently being tested to gather survey data as part of the 10,000-person Healthy Brain Network research study where parents answer questions on their children's sleep, behaviour, mood, physical activity, levels of energy, stress etc. MindLogger will be used as a general purpose citizen science logger for use across scientific disciplines and user scenarios to meet the SDGs and similar challenges.

Linked Semantic Mental Health Database and Scientific Framework mapping signs, symptoms and behaviours associated with mental health and learning disorders to relevant projects, concepts, research, questionnaires, community initiatives, technologies, people and the like (https://github.com/ChildMindInstitute/mhdb/wiki)

A Student-Driven Citizen Science Framework for peer-collaboration and collective intelligence

Pilot Study: Pan-continental, Student Peer-to-Peer Learning through Research Paradigms - A program integrating learning, research/citizen science and academic models where students from different disciplines learn and apply innovative approaches in research and education on projects with communities.

Anirudh Origins (from questions to a quest....)

From coming to Paris with dreams of being a professional table tennis player to a PhD: 'Dynamic Digital Drivers and Citizen Science Frameworks for Mental Health Open Science' supervised by Dr. Ariel Lindner (INSERM/CRI) and Dr. Arno Klein (Child Mind Institute, New York).

The smile of the simplest achievement in the face of a special child & the reflection of joy magnified in the parents’ visage is the closest thing to magic I have ever experienced. As I progressed in my PhD, I quietly slid into the world of children with mental health disorders & their parents & caregivers. I became a part of a world that most of humanity is ignorant of. Here I saw heroics in its extreme - the sheer courage & struggle of the children and the motivation and tenacity of the parents made great soldiers & leaders pale in comparison. I realised that to join this world & bring them closer to the silver lining in their cloud is my life’s calling. What energizes me is the potential to leverage this intrinsic motivation through citizen science initiatives & digital ecosystems - a fast growing area. Here, researchers, stakeholders & the general public collaborate on initiatives for the benefit of science & society. Such collective intelligence & action should be in vogue & reach higher potential in the world of mental health (1 in 4 people worldover will be affected by mental health disorders at some point in their life). This example also lends itself to extrapolation into other world issues. Thus I see the world as a hitherto untapped ocean of givers who could join this smaller world of the differently-abled in a win-win & mutually fulfilling relationship.