YoungHappy

The tendency of elders who are capable to use smart phone and to access social media is growing. However, there is no online channel that give proper information for elders about health and well-being of senior people, introduce interesting and pleasant activities for them, provide online learning courses and be an online community for elders to meet with the peers. With those pain points, we have created YoungHappy application that has features that address those points. Through content and activities shared on the application, we are now enhancing mental and physical health of more than 20,000people in Thailand.  Ageing society is global issue, if we expand it beyond Thailand, we will create impact in reducing the rate of mental illness and number of bedridden elders, lowering medical cost that government or family have to spend to support the them, and  enhancing self-valued of senior. 

YoungHappy aims to tackle ageing society in Thailand. There are 14 million senior citizens residing in Thailand, up to 80% are active seniors who are capable of participating in activities. Unfortunately, they are excluded from many activities due to a lack of channel to communicate among elders. The existing application are not designed for elders specifically so it is difficult for them to use. For example the text is too small, and the icon is not clear. Moreover, the content on other existing application is not friendly for elders. For example it is complex and too hard to understand. Therefore,  YoungHappy application exist to be an online community for elders to stay close with their peers and receive up-to-date useful information related to their physical and mental health.

Application that provides all information on how to maintain physical health and well-being for ageing, recommend online and offline activities that friendly for elders, and connect elders together through online community. The application is available for IOS and Android. User have to register to membership in order to access to those information, it has no registration fee. When they became a membership, they access to all the contents on the application and post or comment with on their peers’ post in community feature. 

We are targeting retired people or pre-retired people(50 year olds and above). The reason we work to serve this group is we want to see inclusive society where seniors can engage and contribute to the society as long as their capacity allow. In the process of application development, we always include the target users, for example asking for feedback about the feature of the application and content on the application and conducting offline activities for elders so that we can strength relationship with them to gain insight about their needs and some limitation. Based on the insight, we continuously develop our application to be more suitable and friendly to the elders. 

Elders are left out from society because they lack of digital literacy, and their ability in technology is limited. Our application does not only provide information to enhance health and well-being of elders in our YoungHappy community but we also provide important knowledge and skills so that they can participate in any economic or leisure activities in the globalisation where the world is driven by technologyy more effectively.  

Online learning, Challenge just launched where it has a space to develop further and test it with target users. 

Our solution support elders’ physical and mental health at the initial stage as YoungHappy encourage elders to use device and online platform. Digital literacy is significantly important for anyone in this fast-growing period. We are creating a space for them, it is the path to the inclusive society. Besides, tackling social issue, our solution also generate money to sustain itself. Therefore, it is an innovative solution in the 21st century as it is a combination of social aspect and economic aspect. Importantly, the ultimate goal of our solution is to make live of ageing people better in all aspects.  

Our solution are now serving more than 20,000 elders around Thailand, in other word we are now serving 0.6 % of potential target- 3,000,000 people.  In 2022, we plan to expand our business to Singapore, we will be able to increase more users and create wider impact. Recently, we are well-known in Thailand as we appear on some mainstream press. Thus, at the end of 2022, we estimate that for both countries we will acquire 60,000 membership. We plan that we can reach more users every year. Within 5 years, we estimate that we will able to serve 600,000 elders. 

YoungHappy set up 3 indicators to measure our impact goal. 

First, number of elders register to the application is increased by 5% every year. 

Second, number of activities that allow elders to participate is increase.

Third, Active Aging Index is increase.

Currently we have 20 full-time staffs and 1 part-time staff. 

Please see our organizational structure in the image attached below. 

The CEO had volunteer at senior centre for several year before he started working on YoungHappy. He has developed empathy by talking and do activities with those elders. Besides, volunteering the centre, he learns and understand needs of ageing people from his parents. He has strong desires to tackle ageing and create good health and well-being for elders. Moreover, he has formed the team with people who share the same passion. 

CTO graduated from software engineering major. Besides, working at YoungHappy, he is now working with technology company that want to solve real world problems and make human life easier with the best solutions. 

Below image is our core team and advisor that lead YoungHappy. 

Any opinion or idea from staff is heard by management team. We are open for anyone to use the most of their potential to be a part of this team. This is a space for anyone to learn, failure is a lesson for staff and the organization to grow. We appreciate diversity of culture, background, gender, language, and social status. We believe that the diverse team make the best innovation to this world. 

We want to access to more funding to develop our application and support in expanding the team. The application still need to develop further to meet with the user' needs. We will add more feature to support elders with healthcare advice. Manpower is significant for our company to grow if we can expand the team we will be able to assist elders in digital literacy  and create more event and activities for them.