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BetterSpaceNOW: A personal digital assistant for employee and community wellbeing and resilience

Lead Participant: WELLBEINGX LTD

Abstract

The coronavirus (C-19) pandemic has caused profound disruption to work, families and communities across the globe. Home-working and physical isolation are severely impacting mental and physical health. BetterSpaceNOW is a free, physically-distanced personal wellbeing assistant which will improve health and resilience during these extraordinary times.

BetterSpaceNOW builds on the success of BetterSpace, an AI and digital health company with significant potential for international expansion. Our guiding belief is that we can empower people to self-manage wellbeing through choice and personalisation. £50k of public funding will allow us to rapidly deploy BetterSpaceNOW, free enterprise and single-user versions of BetterSpace designed to help people navigate the coronavirus era. Through a zero-barrier product, we will help large numbers of people with no financial resources get through this crisis.

How will BetterSpaceNOW feel to a user? It will:
Provide seamless access to hundreds of carefully curated resources for self-managing wellbeing at home;
Educate people on managing their wellbeing;
Make personalised suggestions based on need and preference;
Facilitate invitations to colleagues and friends to join virtual events and try new resources;
Create groups of people who look out for each other.

BetterSpaceNOW is based on eight key pillars of wellbeing: exercise, sleep, social connections, managing stress, meaningful activity, helping others, productivity and recovery.

Examples range from Rebel Books Clubs, GeoGuessr (travel the world online for free), MyEva (digital financial advisor), Joe Wicks online PE lessons, Skillshare (online classes from web design to baking), Sleepio (sleep CBT app), Down Dog (home yoga studio), IAPT self-referral, Covid-19 Mutual Aid and Age UK's befriending service. Nothing like BetterSpaceNOW exists today.

Our project will start on 4 May 2020 and be delivered by a multidisciplinary team of entrepreneurs, health professionals and technologists with the capability to deliver a successful project. 20 companies will use and test the platform, and 50 individuals, scaling to at least 1,000 through viral recommendation.

BetterSpaceNOW will add value by winning new enterprise customers and individual users, which will be leveraged to BetterSpace paid customers when economic conditions improve, anticipated 2022\. We aim to support 10M people by 2023, 60% in the UK and 40% overseas.

BetterSpaceNOW will have substantial positive impacts on society (improved mental health and wellbeing) and the economy (lower cost to employers from ill-health, reduced burden on the NHS). We estimate the ROI from £50k of public funding to be at least 350% within 3 years, representing substantial value for money.

Lead Participant

Project Cost

Grant Offer

WELLBEINGX LTD £49,846 £ 49,846

Publications

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