Mapping mental healthcare

Hello Reader,

Got the Monday Blues? We have got you covered! 

In exactly four days we will find out if our beloved Eleven and the kids from Hawkins town or the Upside Down’s evil Vecna win in the series finale of Netflix’s Stranger Things. 

We are all “Running Up That Hill” to find out on July 1!  

Talking about Stranger Things, Caleb McLaughlin, the actor who plays Lucas Sinclair, made his first big purchase with his Netflix earnings. Last year, Caleb, who earns a reported $250,000 per episode, bought a Tesla Model X and attributes his parents for teaching him fiscal responsibility since his childhood. 

Now that he is an adult, the conversation has steered towards investing. 

Mapping digital mental healthcare

In India, two out of every five professionals experienced increased stress, burnout, or anxiety owing to the pandemic, as per LinkedIn’s Workforce Confidence Index ‘mental health’ edition survey at the end of 2020.

In fact, within a week of the first lockdown in 2020, reported cases of mental illness in India had increased by 20 percent, per a survey by the Indian Psychiatry Society. From frontline workers to students, professionals, Covid survivors, young adults, and the elderly, everyone was at risk. 

As the pandemic accelerated a mental health epidemic that organisations and communities could no longer ignore, a digital disruption began gradually altering the landscape of mental healthcare.

Key takeaways:

• Online therapy has been a respite for many, including the always hustling breed of startup entrepreneurs.
• The tech-led digital mental healthcare and healing space provides anonymity and accessibility and is perceived to be safer and non-judgemental than traditional ones.
• The online boom has pivoted a mushrooming of mental health startups. But for care-seekers whom to trust remains a big question.

“Digital intervention has made mental healthcare accessible for one and all, and I believe seeking help has been normalised,” says Berlin-based clinical psychologist Drishti Jaisingh, who offers online therapy to individuals and couples, mainly professionals or students in semi-urban and urban areas. 

Uolo: You only live once

While many edtech startups were adjusting to the new normal, Uolo had an advantage up its sleeve—it had already partnered with schools across India.

Founded in 2013 by Pallav Pandey, Ankur Pandey, and Siddharth Singh, Uolo Technology—or Uolo, short for 'You Only Live Once'—started as a school communication platform by tying up with 150 schools. 

Edtech across India:

• Riding the edtech boom during the Covid pandemic, Uolo expanded its partnerships by 700 percent to reach 5,600 schools in 2022. 
• Once a school has onboarded Uolo, they provide students with mandatory paid K-12 programmes in spoken English, advanced maths, and coding, among others. 
• Uolo aims to reach 25,000 schools by September 2023, onboarding 10 million students.

Artworks on metaverse 

Probir Mukerjee noticed that financial uncertainties in the primary art market were limiting the reach of artwork. In January, this led him to found TheProNFT to “bridge the gap between traditional art and metaverse”. 

TheProNFT uses the transparency, flexibility, and security of blockchain and NFTs to digitally trade physical artwork and intends to make art accessible to everybody.  

Key takeaways: 

• The startup uses NFTs to trade physical artwork digitally. 
• It has listed its NFT collection of paintings on the OpenSea marketplace and intends to give collectors sole ownership of the NFTs.

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