Cracking the GenoPro code

Funny thing about me is I’m a deep skeptic about technology. I thought movies were too big to ever stream. I thought the iPhone would never find a market. And I thought AI would never write my code. But here I am, having built Geno in 48 hours. And a week later, a rock-solid continuous integration pipeline. From this point on, every change gets tracked, every test recorded, and every deployment automated, so your family tree is safe with every update. So what is Geno? Geno is an app for building genograms — maps of your family that show how people relate, both biologically and socially.

The healthcare field badly needs a modern genogram program. GenoPro™ is an old Win32 app that today is the most widely used program among the clinicians I speak with, but it is still incompatible with many modern platforms. Geno is built from the ground up to be cross-platform. Because it runs on .NET MAUI and Blazor, I can generate versions not just for Windows, but also for iPhone and iPad, Android, macOS, Linux, and the web.

I went out and talked to marriage and family therapists. I learned from them not just how useful genograms are in their practices, but also where the old software falls short. First and foremost, GenoPro adheres rigidly to a gender binary. It doesn’t make space for transgender and non-binary people. Second, its relationship types haven’t kept up with the current McGoldrick standard, and therapists who use it every day tell me it misses things they need in the room.

Here’s the part I’m proudest of: I’ve cracked the GenoPro code. After a lot of late nights, Geno can already open, modify, and save back out GenoPro files. That lets me capture the current market, so therapists can bring years of work with them on day one. And my lightning-fast deployment pipeline will let me re-imagine genogram software and turn it into what it should be: software that makes space for every family, follows the current McGoldrick standard, and was designed from day one with the perspective and input of practicing marriage and family therapists.

And it’s easy on the eyes.

GenoPro is a trademark of its owner. Geno is an independent project and is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by GenoPro.