L2M – Otherside Health

The project aims to provide accessible, empirically-guided, and population-specific mental health interventions. These interventions will be co-created with the populations who will benefit from them, using a participatory action framework developed by applicant Kev Kokoska’s PhD research with incarcerated people. The core idea is to tailor and repurpose the mental health tools that have proven effective in the hardest setting (prison) so that other hard to reach or “treatment resistant” communities may also benefit. Our mental health market research to date tells us that tailored (population-specific) approaches to mental health are of significant need, especially in historically marginalized communities. The main commercialization challenge we have faced is clarifying the difference(s) between ‘customers’ and ‘users’. Therefore, this will be the primary focus during this Lab2Market Validate process. We wish to better understand the needs of customers (institutions/organizations) and how solving their institutional pains will promote mental wellness in our users (specific segments of the ‘general public’).

Faculty Supervisor:

David Kuhl

Student:

Partner:

I-INC Foundation for Business Development

Discipline:

Sociology

Sector:

Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

The University of British Columbia

Program: