Neurodivergence can be a superpower if supported appropriately. In fact, 40-50% of founders are neurodivergent, indicating its potential for creativity and innovation. However, many are held back by the challenges that come with it.

Steph Hamill is solving this problem as the Co-Founder of Divergence Supplements. Their lead product, Gamma Focus, is the first natural superblend specifically formulated to support the needs of divergent minds.

Steph began her career in marketing, business development, and innovation. She now exclusively applies this expertise to making a social impact, such as in her role as senior entrepreneur-in-residence and MBA faculty for Oneday, an EdTech accelerator that supports entrepreneurs in launching and scaling their businesses. She has personally mentored over 250 founders.

Steph was also the first investor for Mettle - the first mental fitness toolkit for men - which featured on MindTech as our very first episode.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Steph’s personal experience of being treated for neurodivergence, which gave her the insight to create a thriving business in this space

• Redefining neurodivergence and unleashing its advantages

• Facilitating community with conversational AI

Steph is currently writing a book on neurodivergent entrepreneurs. So, if you are a neurodivergent entrepreneur, you can reach out to Steph on LinkedIn.

Access the MindTech Matrix - the first map of mental health technology startups organised by the problem they’re solving and the solution they’re building.

Discover insights & tools for your mind at ⁠The Mind, Explored.⁠

In children, existing treatments for depression are effective in only 60% of cases. After treatment, 50 - 75% experience a relapse. Why are these outcomes so poor? And how can we make progress?

In this episode, we answer these questions and discuss:

1. 3 overlooked factors contributing to young people’s mental health
2. How parents can better support their children through mental health challenges
3. How to measure DSM-5 outcomes in fewer questions for young people

Peter Templeton founded The William Templeton Foundation for Young People’s Mental Health (YPMH) - a charitable foundation working to improve the lives of young people by facilitating innovation to resolve mental health conditions.

On June 19th 2024, YPMH are co-hosting ‘Collaborate to innovate: Working together to transform mental health outcomes’ at the University of Cambridge. Each session is relevant to MindTech, but the one I am most looking forward to is the middle session on evaluating and prioritising innovations. Learn more and buy tickets here.

Access the MindTech Matrix - the first map of mental health technology startups organised by the problem they’re solving and the solution they’re building.

Discover insights & tools for your mind at ⁠The Mind, Explored.⁠

Clare Kennedy Purvis is a Stanford-trained clinical psychologist who has applied her understanding of the mind to building digital mental health interventions all throughout her career, including as the:

• VP of Clinical Product & Content Development at Headspace
• Clinical Product Lead in the Mental Health Centre of Excellence at Google
• Head of Clinic Product at Lantern
• Chief Product Officer at Mindcure

Clare is also the Founder of WELL - a business leadership community for women clinicians and scientists in digital health.

In this episode, we discuss:

• How Headspace relieves acute distress (painkiller effect) and then guides users towards a long-term preventative approach (vitamin effect)
• Aligning value-based outcomes with payment models
• Clare’s bold bet on the next opportunity for innovation in MindTech

See where Headspace fits into the MindTech Matrix - the first map of mental health technology startups organised by the problem they’re solving and the solution they’re building.

Discover insights & tools for your mind at ⁠The Mind, Explored.⁠

Modelling the brain as a biological computer?!

Dr Rick Adams is a Consultant Psychiatrist, widely published researcher, and a Future Leaders Fellow in the UCL Department of Computer Science and Division of Psychiatry.

Rick is a leader in the field of Computational Psychiatry, a discipline applying computational methods to understanding psychiatric problems. He completed a PhD in this niche, and now runs a Computational Psychiatry Lab at UCL.

There aren’t many people in the world more qualified to discuss the potential for computational tools to transform mental health.

In this episode, we will cover:

1. How we can model the brain as a biological computer
2. The barriers to overcome in translating computational theory into clinical practice
3. The technology that could be adopted immediately into his psychiatry clinic

Learn more about Rick's work on UCL's website.

Subscribe to MindTech's email list for access to the MindTech Matrix - the first map of mental health technology startups organised by the problem they’re solving and the solution they’re building.

Discover insights & tools for your mind at ⁠The Mind, Explored.⁠

Are we creating technologies that support:

• Connection or division?
• Addiction or isolation?
• Mindfulness or distraction?

Wisdom Ventures support a new generation of companies that do the former, in a world where technology has often achieved the latter.

After 25+ years at Google, Microsoft, and Cisco, Ruchika Sikri is accelerating the growth of mindfulness, compassion, and wellness platforms as a Partner at Wisdom Ventures.

In this episode, we discuss:

1. The value of Emotional Intelligence for VCs
2. Enterprise Sales as a gateway to Direct-to-Consumer Sales
3. The advantages of targeting narrow user groups
4. Emerging trends in wellbeing technology

Learn more about Wisdom Ventures on their website.

Subscribe to MindTech's email list for access to the MindTech Matrix - the first map of mental health technology startups organised by the problem they’re solving and the solution they’re building.

Discover insights & tools for your mind at ⁠The Mind, Explored.⁠

How can we use technology as a bridge, not a barrier, to human connection?

Dr Mark Cox is a Co-Founder of Lumi, a startup that answers this question by using technology to help families reconnect through a blend of digital and real-world experiences.

Mark is an NHS Doctor with 5 years of clinical experience, currently working part-time in A&E while he builds Lumi.

Listen to learn:

• The importance of family support in managing child mental health
• How to use technology to get people off technology
• How MindTech could be integrated in schools (not just hospitals)

Learn more about Lumi on their website.

Subscribe to MindTech's email list for access to the MindTech Matrix - the first map of mental health technology startups organised by the problem they’re solving and the solution they’re building.

Discover insights & tools for your mind at ⁠The Mind, Explored.⁠

How do we close the gap between intention and action? A key problem for anyone trying to change behavior for the better.

Aline Holzwarth invests her brainpower in solving this problem, earning many impressive stripes as an applied behavioral scientist along the way, such as: 

• Behavioral Science Lead in the Health AI team at Apple

• Head of Behavioral Science at Pattern Health - a digital health platform motivating patients to engage with their care

• Principal of the Centre for Advanced Hindsight at Duke University - where she redesigned systems to help people make better health decisions

Today, she and her team run Nuance - harnessing the best of behavioral science to achieve scalable behavior change in all the digital products they develop.

Listen to learn Aline’s take on:

1. The most effective incentives that mental health apps can give their users to achieve lasting behavior change

2. How to leverage a user’s intrinsic motivation to close the gap between intention and action

3. The 3 behavioral science concepts most relevant to MindTech

Learn more about Aline on her website.

Subscribe to MindTech's email list for access to the MindTech Matrix - the first map of mental health technology startups organized by the problem they’re solving and the solution they’re building.

Discover insights & tools for your mind at ⁠The Mind, Explored.⁠

Dr-Julian is a startup taking on what the legendary investor Paul Graham would describe as ‘Schlep blindness’, which refers to the tendency to overlook significant yet unglamorous problems (Schleps) because they don’t offer the immediate gratification of simpler, more straightforward challenges.

In mental health, one of these important yet tedious problems is the long waiting lists for people seeking therapy. Dr Julian Nesbitt, the founder of the Dr. Julian online healthcare platform, has taken on this problem when many others have shied away from the complexity, and systems-wide change that is needed to solve it.

Instead of inventing any new way to diagnose or treat mental illness, the Dr-Julian platform simply leverages existing technology to make accessing a therapist more efficient, data-driven, and accessible by making the whole process digital.

However, the most impressive thing about the Dr-Julian platform is the execution. Julian has managed to do what so many find impossible: penetrating and scaling in the NHS.

In this episode, you’ll hear how Julian presented his platform as a ‘no-brainer’ for the NHS to buy into, where the bottlenecks in mental healthcare lie, and his thoughts on naming his platform after himself!

The Dr-Julian Platform also offers a range of clinically-validated self-help tools and resources. Access these for free by creating an account on app.dr-Julian.com or from the App Store.

Visit the ⁠Dr-Julian website to learn more.

Subscribe to MindTech's email list for access to the MindTech Matrix - the first map of mental health technology startups organised by the problem they’re solving and the solution they’re building.

Discover insights & tools for your mind at ⁠The Mind, Explored.⁠

Created & Hosted by Manu Sidhu, MD.