A Personal Spark
MyMemoryAI was sparked by a person very close and dear to my heart—my grandmother. It was saddening to see her battle slowly with memory loss, yet it planted the seed for something extraordinary. I pictured a digital companion to help people like her relive memories, reconnect with loved ones, and feel empowered through shared experiences.
Teamwork and Connection
Though a solo builder on paper, the experience wasn't solitary. Bolt.new sponsor teams and community delivered value right away:
- I connected with fellow builders and mentors in Discord who reviewed my voice UX flows.
- Bolt's support team personally guided me through Supabase and Algorand integration, a first for me.
- ElevenLabs engineers taught me about voice latency handling, which enabled me to optimize narration for the dementia-friendly slideshow.
- It felt like being part of a hackathon family, even while building asynchronously across time zones.
Hackathon IRL: Mini Moments That Mattered
Although I didn't participate in an in-person IRL hackathon this time, I did have a family demo night—letting my parents experience MyMemoryAI. My mom got choked up during the slideshow narration of a childhood memory. That's when I knew the app did more than function, it touched people.
Giving Back. To pay it forward:
- Answered questions in the Bolt.new forums about custom audio flows
- Posted notes on my Algorand + Bolt + Supabase integration with other teams
- Gave UX feedback to various newcomers building apps for neurodiverse users
Community Shoutouts
@boltnew – for building the infrastructure and community that made this possible
@elevenlabs – for enabling such realistic and soothing narration
@supabase – your dashboards powered our caregiver insights
@josephmwangi – that's me, but I could not have done it without the amazing mentors and Discord channels that guided me
What I Learned
- Sometimes your best ideas are born out of personal pain
- Community is not just a Slack channel—it's knowing that someone, somewhere, is rooting for your build
Tech becomes magic when combined with empathy
The Project
MyMemoryAI is live at https://eloquent-kleicha-16006a.netlify.app/
And you can read our entire build story here → https://dev.to/shortgiant/from-grandma-to-git-building-a-dementia-friendly-app-with-boltnew-430d
Top comments (1)
Wow Joseph. This is a very helpful idea, and a great way to use new this great new AI technology to help those whom its advantages might otherwise bypass. Best of luck!