At Rise of AI Summit 2020, Accenture hosts the finals of its HumAInity Innovation Challenge, a Nordic competition launched with SingularityU Nordic, Samsung, Furhat Robotics, Swedbank and Save the Children to find AI-driven solutions for mental well-being. Accenture consultants Sandy Sander and Josephine introduce the event, noting eight semi-finalist teams were narrowed to four, who now share a 20,000 euro grant and pitch updated progress before a jury for a bonus acceleration package. Breathe presents a machine-learning digital health coach using self-reflection, reporting an 18 percent stress reduction in a 30-day beta; its updated pitch adds a multilevel Bayesian model with a Gaussian process for personalized feedback. Medified, a Finnish startup represented by Valtteri, a medical student, presents cloud-based software connecting mental health patients and professionals via NLP-driven data capture, reporting Class I CE certification and hospital-district collaborations. NoStress presents an app predicting work-related stress from calendar, email, wearable and self-report data. Healper (branded on-screen as a psychologist-matching platform) presents an AI-driven booking system matching patients to psychologists, citing a database of 1,100 psychologists in Denmark. The jury, including Swedbank's Nima Gurbani and Samsung's Alexander Grimson, unanimously names Medified the winner.
Key takeaways
- Accenture's HumAInity Innovation Challenge, run with Nordic partners, funds AI solutions for mental well-being with a shared 20,000 euro grant.
- Breathe reported an 18 percent stress reduction in a 30-day beta; its updated pitch added a multilevel Bayesian model with a Gaussian process.
- Medified reports achieving Class I CE certification and hospital-district collaborations in Finland for its patient-professional data platform.
- NoStress predicts work-related stress from calendar, email, wearable and self-report data, finding most surveyed users willing to share anonymized data with employers.
- The jury unanimously named Medified the 2020 winner, citing its sophisticated use of machine learning and a well-received business model.
Detailed notes
Background: the HumAInity Innovation Challenge
Accenture's Sandy Sander and Josephine introduce the challenge, launched roughly two years earlier in Accenture Sweden with SingularityU Nordic, Samsung, Furhat Robotics, Swedbank and Save the Children, to explore whether AI can counter rising loneliness, depression and stress in the Nordics despite the region's high happiness rankings. They cite WHO research anticipating increased loneliness, depression, harmful substance use and self-harm during the COVID-19 pandemic. A semi-final narrowed eight applicant teams, judged on their use of AI, impact on mental well-being, innovation and scalability, down to four finalists who split a 20,000 euro grant and now pitch updated progress for a jury-selected winner.
Breathe: a machine-learning stress coach
Breathe's founder presents a mobile digital health coach aiming for zero workplace burnout, citing that stress costs Swedish society 80 billion kronor annually and that a 500-employee company loses about 12 million per month in stress-related productivity. The tool uses self-reflection, positive psychology and machine learning to give feedback rather than nudges, and can incorporate external data such as heart rate variability. The founder reports an 18 percent stress reduction and behavioral improvement in a 30-day beta test of this original version. In the updated pitch, Breathe describes redesigning the product around a real-time dialogue with follow-up questions, driven by a multilevel Bayesian model using a Gaussian process.
Medified: data-driven mental health treatment support
Medified's Valtteri, a medical student, presents cloud-based software connecting mental health patients and healthcare professionals, noting that 99 percent of treatment happens outside clinical visits, making it hard for professionals to know why a treatment did not work. The mobile app uses AI-driven psychoeducational features and natural language processing to capture patient needs under GDPR without added workload. In the update, Medified reports Class I CE certification under medical device regulation, collaborations with multiple Finnish hospital districts and the Finnish Central Mental Health Association, initial project revenue, and early discussions with US healthcare providers and investors.
NoStress: predicting work-related stress from behavioral data
The NoStress team presents an app that predicts work-related stress by combining calendar, email, weather, smartphone and wearable data with self-reported stress check-ins, citing a survey where 73 percent of respondents named work as their top stress cause. Individuals get insight into workload patterns such as work hours and email load; companies receive anonymized, department-level dashboards. In the update, the team reports survey and interview findings showing most users would share data with employers if aggregated and anonymized, and describes building a first interactive prototype ahead of piloting with a business customer.
Healper and the jury's decision
Healper's founder describes building an AI-driven platform matching patients to psychologists based on mental health issue, location and personal fit, citing that only about one in five patients find chemistry with their first psychologist. The platform, which the founder says has assembled the largest database of psychologists in Denmark (1,100), would be free to patients, funded by transaction fees from psychologists and clients, and targets a legal requirement for public psychologists to offer online booking by mid-2021. Jury members Nima Gurbani (Swedbank) and Alexander Grimson (Samsung) note the finalists all adapted their pitches to the pandemic's mental health impact and the jury unanimously selected Medified as the winner of the HumAInity Innovation Challenge 2020.
Questions answered in this talk
What is the HumAInity Innovation Challenge?
According to the Rise of AI Summit 2020 finals, the HumAInity Innovation Challenge is an Accenture-led competition, run with SingularityU Nordic, Samsung, Furhat Robotics, Swedbank and Save the Children, that funds AI-driven startups addressing mental well-being in the Nordics.
Which startup won the HumAInity Innovation Challenge 2020?
The jury at the Rise of AI Summit 2020 finals unanimously selected Medified, a Finnish startup providing cloud-based, AI-supported software connecting mental health patients and healthcare professionals, as the 2020 winner.
How does Breathe use machine learning for stress reduction?
Breathe's founder explains at the Rise of AI Summit 2020 finals that in its original pitch the app, using self-reflection principles from positive psychology, achieved an 18 percent stress reduction in a 30-day beta; the updated pitch adds a multilevel Bayesian model with a Gaussian process to personalize feedback.