Ægir Health

Ægir Health provides mental wellness tracking and collaboration tools for school children.

https://aegir.health

Challenge

In the Nordics, 13.5% of young people struggling or suffering with mental health issues, namely depression, anxiety, and stress. Surveys indicate that there’s a growing mental healthcare crisis, for instance¹:

• An  SOU  report  (2006)  about  young  people,  stress  and mental health reports that the number of girls aged between 15 and 19 who were treated  in  hospital  for  depression  increased  eight  times  between  1980  and  2003
• 20% of young people [in Sweden, early teenage years] want to harm themselves
• Surveys show that  between  20  and  40  percent  of  [Swedes]  have  mental  health  problems  at  any  one  time… 5-10 percent, have such serious problems that they need psychiatric treatment 

Early detection is key, as “half  of  all  mental  health  problems  having  their  onset  before  the  age  of  14” and “Mental health problems, however, influence adolescentsʼ social, intellectual and emotional development  and  have  been  linked  to  psychiatric  disorders  throughout  adulthood”².

Solution

Ægir Health’s solution is to provide classrooms with a SaaS-based tool which connects students, parents, teachers, and counselors all with the goal of improving the mental well-being of their students.

The platform asks students 3 questions each day related to their mental wellness at school, at home, and with their friends. Students will see a history of their responses in order to track these three mental conditions. They’ll also be able to reach out to parents, teachers, and counselors via the application, enabling students to share their current mental wellness.

The main benefits of Ægir:

• Early detection of mental health concerns, resulting in increased mental wellbeing for students
• Reduced stigma around mental health discussions
• Improved classroom culture

Long term societal impact includes:

• Improved education and workforce involvement, especially during the critical early adult years
• Reduction of inpatient psychiatric service need, offset by increasing (but less expensive and more effective) outpatient services

Building healthy habits early and reducing the stigma of mental wellness issues can have a dramatic impact on the long term success of a child’s transition into adulthood.

User Experience

We’ve spent a lot of time crafting the experience of Ægir.

An emphasis has been placed on striking the right balance between the seriousness of mental health and creating a fun experience that students will want to use. For instance, the “streaks” functionality encourages students to build healthy habits over time, but doesn’t strive to create an unhealthy addiction.

Market Sizing

There are roughly 4.5 million students in the nordics, of which, approximately 2 million are in Ægir’s target primary and secondary school demographic³.

Beyond the Nordics, there is large expansion potential into Europe, North America, and select APAC countries, with an estimated combined 110 million students.

Pricing

Given that this is a SaaS-based solution, Ægir’s pricing will likely be as a per student subscription model, roughly 10 EUR per student, per year. Ægir’s goal would be to have multi-year contracts, with discounts available for large volume and longer term contracts. This subscription model is in-line with competitors in the space, and familiar to educational institutions.

Team

Both Alex Patow and Emil Broman come from a technical background with a wide range of experience across multiple industries. They both have a deep passion for mental health awareness and education. Additionally, Emil’s wife is a kindergarten teacher and Alex’s mother is a board member at multiple children’s literacy organizations in the Richmond, VA, USA area.

Next Steps

Despite the progress made during this hackathon, there’s still a large amount of features that can be added to Ægir:

• Trend series analysis could be used to distinguish between actual wellness trends and cyclical patterns
• Views for school counselors and parents
• Improvements to notifications and gamification

A pilot program in a select number of Nordic schools and/or partnering with child psychology or educational institutions could help to better understand stakeholders and establish product/market fit.

Overall, we’re really excited to share with you the progress that we’ve made on Ægir Health over the past 3 days and hope to continue working in this truly impactful space.

¹ https://nordicwelfare.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/sverige_webb-1.pdf

² https://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/381139/situation-child-adolescent-health-eng.pdf

³ http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:701734/FULLTEXT01.pdf