During Mental Health Awareness Week our panel will be discussing how we can breakdown the stigma of mental health in our community.
In an article written in TechCrunch in December of last year and according to a study by Michael Freeman, entrepreneurs are 50% more likely to report having a mental health condition, with some specific conditions being incredibly prevalent amongst founders.
Founders are:
2X more likely to suffer from depression
6X more likely to suffer from ADHD
3X more likely to suffer from substance abuse
10X more likely to suffer from bi-polar disorder
2X more likely to have psychiatric hospitalization
2X more likely to have suicidal thoughts
Starting companies and scaling them is inherently tremendous hard, mentally, physically and emotionally. The grind can be a toxic one, with dozens of factors all contributing to make it even more treacherous.
Daniela Luzi Tudor is a serial entrepreneur. Ms. Tudor is the co-founder and CEO of WEconnect Recovery and creator of WEconnect mobile app and the WEconnect outcomes data platform, an on-the-go custom support and connection system for those in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction. This venture is guided by Ms. Tudor’s core mission: Using the vast potential of technology to connect people and communities for physical and spiritual health. Ms. Tudor’s belief in the combined power of art, music, and technology to build communities and solve problems stems from her own experience with overcoming adversity.
Ms. Tudor’s career has had a dual focus on entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship. She has founded or been instrumental in three start-ups: WEconnect, The Beats Running Events, and SoundStrokes. She has a strong track record as an intrapreneur/tech. evangelist in the technology world. Her career also had a heavy focus on building successful engineering and development teams on a consulting basis for major enterprises such as Microsoft.
The story behind Ms. Tudor’s inspiration for WEconnect and work on the WEconnect mobile app has been featured in Techstars Blog, Forbes, TechCrunch, Geekwire, Seattle Times and more.
Berké is a leading expert in motivation and behavior change. He has worked with numerous companies, organizations and municipal governments to create mission-driven and sustainable changes in culture, performance, and service.
He is a managing partner and Executive Coach at BLP Consulting, a values-based organizational consulting firm. He is also the founder of iGYM Enterprises, a health tech and coaching lifestyle transformation company that equips individuals with research-backed tools for both healthy living and thinking. Berké graduated from UC Berkeley and was awarded highest honors for his research on internal motivation and the psycho-motivational forces of behavior change. From both his research and his consulting experience,
Berké continues to create powerful change management programs that increase human motivation and engagement in both work, health and life.
Ravi Sharma is Co-Founder and CEO of OOTify, a mental health marketplace that connects people to mental health professionals, life coaches, and personal guides utilizing artificial intelligence to optimize the best possible provider based on your specific issue. Ravi has a background in structured finance with organizations like Western Asset Management Company and Bank of America Merrill Lynch. He is a die hard USC Trojan and TiE Charter Member.
After having several family members struggle with mental health issues and then losing a friend to suicide, Ravi embraced the challenge of democratizing mental healthcare for all.
