CareKampung

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Opportunity: What problem are we working on, and why does it matter?

CareKampung addresses a structural gap in how family caregiving is coordinated in Singapore.

Family caregiving is common and increasingly essential as Singapore’s population ages and care shifts into homes and communities. Care responsibilities are often shared across siblings and relatives, yet coordination today is fragmented. Important updates get lost in chat threads, responsibilities are unclear, and over time one person becomes the default caregiver by circumstance rather than choice.

Research consistently shows that caregiving is a sustained, high-load responsibility:

• Family caregivers in Singapore spend about 33 hours per week on caregiving, close to a full-time job.

• Informal caregiving contributes an estimated S$1.28 billion per year in unpaid care value to society.

• Nearly 1 in 7 older adults in Singapore are caregivers themselves, many while managing chronic health conditions.

• A significant proportion of caregivers experience measurable burden associated with poorer health and reduced quality of life.

As Singapore moves towards ageing in place and community-based care, families are expected to take on a larger role in day-to-day caregiving coordination. This coordination is happening under time pressure, health strain, and competing responsibilities. When coordination breaks down, caregivers burn out, care slows down, and stress rises during already difficult moments.

Today, most caregiving coordination relies on tools never designed for this purpose. WhatsApp and Telegram are effective for conversation, but not for keeping important information visible, making responsibilities explicit, or maintaining continuity when caregivers rotate or step in temporarily.

The issue is not willingness to care. Families want to help, but lack a shared, reliable way to organise care together. Without better coordination tools, the burden of care is unevenly carried, and stress accumulates silently within families.

What CareKampung is and what it is not

CareKampung is not a chat app.

It does not replace WhatsApp or Telegram. Instead, it complements them by supporting what chat tools do not do well: keeping important caregiving information easy to find and responsibilities clear.

CareKampung is not a healthcare or medical app.

It does not provide medical advice or clinical guidance.

CareKampung is a lightweight shared coordination space for caregiving families. It allows families to keep caregiving information in one place, assign and track responsibilities, and respond faster during stressful moments, without adding complexity or cognitive load.

Velocity: What we actually built or changed in the last month

A working, pilot-ready prototype of CareKampung has been built.

The current product supports:

• Creation and joining of a shared caregiving space (“kampung”) for family members

• A shared view of upcoming medical appointments

• Task creation with clear assignment and visibility of responsibility

• Centralised medication records, including label scanning to extract details

• A care profile containing important caregiving context accessible to all caregivers

• Simple, low-friction setup designed for time-constrained caregivers

Privacy was intentionally designed in from the start. Only the minimum information required for coordination is collected. For example, medication images are used only to extract information during entry and are not stored afterwards.

The product is intentionally simple and focused, reflecting feedback from caregivers that trust, clarity, and reliability matter more than feature breadth at this stage.

Traction: How real people are using it, and what is happening as a result?

During the hackathon period, we spoke to 11 family caregivers aged 20 to 60+, primarily caring for parents or older relatives, often while working full-time. We also conducted usability testing with caregivers and family members using the working prototype.

Across interviews and testing, we heard consistent pain points:

• “I’m the one coordinating everything.”

• “Information gets lost in chat — we have to scroll back and find it.”

• “We don’t know who is doing what.”

• “When something happens, we scramble.”

Even when siblings want to help, unclear coordination makes it difficult to step in quickly or confidently.

All participants who tested the prototype rated its usefulness 7 out of 10 or higher. Participants consistently described CareKampung as valuable for having caregiving information and responsibilities in one place. Verbatim feedback included: “This is the future,” and “I want this to be a one-stop app for caregiving families.” When asked what part of the caregiving journey was missing, one user responded, “This app is pretty holistic already.”

Initial conversations suggest strong resonance with families managing shared caregiving responsibilities, particularly those balancing work, health, and care duties simultaneously.

Partnering opportunities

We have also engaged Caregiving Welfare Association (CWA) that have indicated their willingness to run a scoped pilot

Pilot will be scoped to a small group of families that would benefit from such coordination. We will need to work out the logistical and administrative details with them but they have indicated clear openness to exploring this opportunity with us.

This is the future (of caregiving)

— Uncle Miao

How you can get involved

We are looking for:

• Caregivers who want to take part in a pilot and help shape the product

• Agency and community partners interested in exploring how this could support families at scale

Conversations help us refine the product and shape how a future pilot could work, if you are a caregiver or work closely with caregiving families, we would love to speak with you.

Interested in collaborating with us?

Indicate here: https://go.gov.sg/carekampung-interest

Email: carekampung@hack2026.gov.sg