By: Persis H.

With Instagram Live, accounts can broadcast to hundreds, if not thousands, depending on the number of followers one has. For youths who can’t make it to church or don’t know what church is about, they now have the chance to tune in on their smartphones and be a part of their friend’s connect group meeting!

The brainchild of a creative team of young people in Heart of God Church, this mechanism was invented to hold 4 phones at any point in time. During connect group (“CG”) meetings, all 4 phones would stream the CG meetings live on Instagram. The hundreds of followers on these 4 Instagram accounts combined would then receive a notification of this live broadcast of the CG meeting.

To find out more about the contraption that helped to make this idea possible, I caught up with Yong Qing, one of the movers behind this invention:

What was the motivation behind creating this mechanism?

Yong Qing: We were actually first approached by the youth leaders. The leaders had an idea to stream their CG meetings live on Instagram for friends to get a glimpse of how CG meetings are run in church, and they wanted a way to make this accessible to as many people as possible. We then started the process of brainstorming to make this happen!

What was the process of creating this mechanism?

Yong Qing: We started the research and ideation process by searching online for inspiration. Surprisingly, we could not find anything similar to the mechanism we eventually created at all! We then ideated the phone mount from scratch by thinking about the needs of the youth. We asked ourselves questions like:

• How wide should the mount be so that a youth can hold it comfortably?
• How can the phones be angled such that they capture the best view?
• How many phones can be mounted at any time?
• What material should the mount be made of such that it is structurally stable?

Subsequently, we created 3D designs of the phone mount and went through three prototypes before we achieved the final product! Each prototype was painstakingly pieced together and crafted. The final phone mount is lightweight, can hold up to 4 phones at any time and can be held in one hand by a youth!

What are your reflections after watching this pilot project take flight?

Yong Qing:  Initially, I was unsure of what the mechanism would look like and whether or not it would work because we could not find anything like it online! It would have to be a complete original. The process of taking things apart and fixing them together again was not a smooth one as well.

However, once the prototypes were put into action, I was amazed to hear stories of friends who watched the Insta-live CG meetings grow in their curiosity, come to church and get impacted! It is our team’s utmost privilege to be able to bring a piece of our church to as many young people as possible through this Insta-live Phone Mount!