Savyn - digital PTSD neuropsychiatry platform

70% of the global population has been exposed to a trauma at least once in their life and 13% of these individuals may develop PTSD (Steel et al., 2009). The global refugee population stood at 26.4 million individuals according to the UNHCR at the end of 2020. 76% of Canadians reported experiencing a traumatic event at least once in a lifetime (Ameringen, Mancini & Boyle, 2008) The prevalence of PTSD in Canada remains high at 9.2% (Ameringen et al., 2008), and higher for minority groups, such as Black and Arab Canadians (~10%) (Statistics Canada, 2022). Among those that screen positive for PTSD, these individuals are 2-7 times more likely to report anxiety, depression, suicide ideation and increased drug use symptoms (Government of Canada, 2021). With the recent COVID-19 pandemic, this number is only expected to rise (Statistics Canada, 2020). Almost 25% of Canadians who met the criteria for PTSD reported their most recent traumatic event occurred during the pandemic (Government of Canada, 2021).

Despite the high prevalence of PTSD in Canada and globally, accessing mental health care to treat trauma and PTSD is a challenge. 82% of those screened positive for PTSD were unable to receive the help they needed due to long wait times (39%), appointment rescheduling (38%) and financial costs (37%) (Statistics Canada, 2022). Traditional in-person therapies are expensive, incurring large costs over time to complete treatment. Mental health support systems can also have wait times that are up to 12 months long, and even longer in rural areas where these resources are sparse to begin with (Canadian Mental Health Association, n.d.). WHO's Mental Health Atlas 2017, a global assessment of mental health services, estimates that less than 10% of people with mental disorders, including PTSD, in low-income countries receive treatment from specialized mental health facilities.

For minority groups in Canada, these barriers may be exacerbated due to structural accessibility factors due to living in a new environment and culture. For instance, language barriers and the lack of professional interpreters (Colucci et al., 2015; Subedi et al., 2015) are significant obstacles, as it hinders communication with professionals and further discourages seeking support (Tribe, 2002).

Savyn solves the problem of accessibility by digitizing existing evidence-based PTSD neuropsychiatry treatments on our website, providing access to trauma survivors who fail to get help due to resource shortage of therapists, higher costs and geographic barriers as most healthcare is concentrated in urban centres. Our virtual solution cuts travel emissions required to access in-person treatments, reduces the need for printed material for care providers, and eliminates the need for physical infrastructure as with in-person clinics. This leads to a decrease in carbon emissions and contributes to a more sustainable environment. Many people in remote communities can access effective therapies from the comfort of their homes. We will be meeting UN SDG Goal-3 (Good Health and Wellbeing) and Goal-10 (reducing inequities) by democratizing access to trauma therapies, as well as Goal-13 (Climate action) by reducing carbon emissions in mental healthcare industry.

Savyn is a proprietary website that is accessed by trauma survivors (patients) with on-call supervision available to assist if needed, using trauma-informed care approach. Our solution assesses the patient's symptoms, records their history and prepares them with grounding tools to be used throughout their subsequent sessions. They come into our application for 8 weeks for 45 minute weekly sessions, where they will do a series of neuroscience based exercises that promotes rewiring of the neurocircuitry to attach less distress to their traumatic incident. Savyn works on both the patient's memory and physiological responses to the trauma, thereby healing holistically. Our current clinical study’s initial data at Sick Kids Research Institute in Toronto shows we improve the patients' PTSD distress symptoms by 65% by the eighth session. There is no coaching or homework requirements from the patient, therefore putting less burden on them to do the work.

We are using full-stack cloud based technology to transform an in-person clinical intervention into a virtual end-to-end digital therapeutics that can be used without human intervention. The application integrates techniques that emphasize trauma-informed care by prioritizing the emotional, psychological and physical safety of the client throughout the treatment.

The integration of these techniques in Savyn’s holistic digital therapeutic application ensures the safety of the client in all aspects throughout the treatment process. Our platform can become a game changer in providing effective PTSD intervention and treatment strategies in low income communities and those with geographically limited resources.

With 85% of diagnosed PTSD patients not getting access to mental health care (Stats Can) and less than 10% of global communities getting access to mental health care (WHO) and growing refugee crisis due to ongoing conflict and climate change, we address the urgent need to have care that is easily accessed at an affordable rate, positively impacting the lives of people with trauma and PTSD. Our goals align with reducing inequalities and good health and well being of people. With this in mind, the  target audience of the project Includes all equity-seeking groups since these groups are more likely to disproportionately have PTSD due to intersectionality, but also may not receive appropriate and effective means to heal from their trauma due to financial and cultural barriers. Equity-seeking groups including racialized people, women, members of the LGBTQ+ community, indigenous communities, and veterans are more likely to benefit from a digitized therapeutic platform where they can easily access different tools for healing their trauma. 

Since our solution is a website, there is no travel required to get access to treatment, with the added benefit of reducing the carbon emissions and our carbon footprint of our solution. Many people in remote areas and indigenous communities can access these therapies from the comfort of their homes. 

We will be able to contribute to meaningful changes in the patient’s lives, the communities they live in and reduce the overall mental health cost to the system due to lost productivity by reducing their PTSD symptoms. PTSD symptoms often involve impacts to well-being and quality of life, increased addictions and suicide ideation, which our solution can help manage.

Savyn’s impact will include

• Reduced healthcare costs associated with treating PTSD.

• Improved productivity and overall functioning for individuals with PTSD.

• Increased societal support for individuals with PTSD, leading to reduced isolation and increased access to resources.

• Decreased carbon emissions with efficient resource utilization

For health system benefits, based on the stepped care model, Savyn’s digital platform can reduce emergency admissions by reaching those patients on long wait lists or frequently rescheduled appointments. Savyn can shift the delivery of care to primary care so that clinicians and therapists can regularly monitor the progression of their patient through Savyn’s technology without an immediate need for secondary care.

Savyn’s CEO and co-founder Sakeena Mihar, is from the community the venture is serving. She is a survivor of war and an immigrant to Canada and has lived experience with PTSD.  She is a racialized Muslim female who has worked closely with refugee communities as a volunteer. With over 10  years of experience in Tech and Product Management, she aims to make her social enterprise successful and serve the racialized and underrepresented communities, the reason the team has made trauma informed approach a priority. Vic Chiang is the Chief Scientist and co-founder. He’s a neuroscientist and currently a PhD candidate who leads the research activities for the team. He belongs to the LGBTQ+ community and lives with depression. They co-founded Savyn, as they struggled to access the right help when needed. They are committed to turn their vision to reality through making trauma support for mental health accessible to all. Matthew Rappard is an experienced tech expert who is the fractional CTO at Savyn.

The team lead has managed to build relationships with organizations serving underrepresented communities in Canada including Amnesty International, Refugee Centre, Pine Foundation, RyePride, and Consent Comes First, among others who provide feedback on the product.

Sakeena Mihar speaks five languages and  our interns and future hires are based on equity and inclusion principles, giving priority to those from underrepresented and racialized communities. Sakeena has spoken to many individuals from the community on a one-on-one basis to get feedback on Savyn’s features. She was able to get around the stigma of speaking about mental health issues in these communities based on her personal relationships and gained insight that has helped Savyn’s user personas. The feedback received has all been positive with many people recommending this project. Sakeena has also spoken at community events in Toronto Metropolitan University and community events, advocating for mental health whenever possible. Sakeena was voted DMZ Women of the Year for 2023. 

Our Board of Directors are EMDR therapists, such as Don Edwards, Naaz Kassem, Guilin Aydin and Kali Munro, who coach and provide feedback on our decisions for product development, market strategy and  provide insights into vulnerable populations who will use them.

We are hoping to solve the following challenges we are currently facing:

• Savyn currently faces financial barriers due to an appropriate lack of funding to support costs associated with commercialization  and funding research at hospitals for procurements, and updates to our digital platform to support clients and database integrity.

• Our technical platform needs to scale to support the larger number of users onboarding on our platform, including a robust database with security for patient data. We are hoping to receive technical mentorship or peer support to help us determine our technical roadmap to scale.

• We have legal barriers we need to solve to protect the IP of our product, both in Canada and as we scale globally. We require mentorship to help us guide the establishment of Savyn’s operations globally in a legally appropriate manner. 

• We are in the life sciences and social impact industry, we need better understanding of global life sciences needs including our priority areas of conflict areas where refugees are being hosted in Europe, Middle East and African markets. 

• A cultural and nuanced trauma informed approach for people with trauma is important and a core principle for us. We hope to learn from other peers and mentors from across the world to solve some of the challenges we are facing.

Sakeena Mihar and Vic Chiang, the co-founders of Savyn, are from the same underrepresented communities that our solution hopes to improve the well-being of, including immigrant and refugee communities and the 2LGBTQSIA+ community. Sakeena speaks five different languages, and has interacted with marginalized community members on a one-on-one basis to determine how Savyn’s digital platform can best serve the mental health needs of the broader community. These interactions have supported the development of Savyn’s user personas to create a more personalized digital software that her community directly needs. Sakeena also actively attends and speaks at larger community outreach events, such as those held at Toronto Metropolitan University where Savyn is currently incubating, to advocate for mental health and meet more individuals firsthand in the community that Savyn can support, while also decreasing the cultural stigma around mental health in general that many members of the community face. Sakeena has also built relationships with organizations directly serving the larger minority communities in Canada, including Amnesty International, Refugee Centre, Pine Foundation, RyePride, and Consent Comes First, among others who provide continuous feedback on the product.

Our solution solves access and treatment of PTSD and trauma by digitizing an evidence based and innovative therapy using neuroscience and eye movements. Savyn’s platform requires the user to do about eight sessions (once per week, each 45 minutes) identifying their emotions, where they feel them in their physical bodies and rewire the brain using different modalities of eye movements. This is an adapted therapy based on existing evidence based therapy of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). Unlike many other therapies which require users to write or think through their trauma, a process that may cause the abandonment of treatment, our initial clinical data shows our treatment can be three times faster than traditional therapies without this risk. Our solution has been developed by in-house research with review and feedback from expert trauma therapists in Canada. 

Our initial data from our recent clinical study shows positive outcomes for patients that are on par with in-person therapy. With our platform we can scale services at clinics for more patient throughputs, reduce waiting times and remove barriers to mental health care by providing affordable and faster care. We will be able to contribute to the reduction of the current annual Canadian mental health cost, estimated at 50 billion dollars according to CAMH. Our approach to extensive testing with patients and psychotherapists is yielding a solid therapy protocol that is trauma-informed for better patient outcomes and yields a high client satisfaction rate. This scientific evidence gives us a competitive advantage, whereas these quality assurance steps are typically foregone by the majority of online wellness apps.

In-person therapy requires patients to travel to professionals for various appointments, and providing limited long-term support for mental healthcare often results in greater rates of hospitalization. Savyn's digital platform centralizes these activities, eliminating the need for duplicative travel, while also providing the support needed for better healthcare outcomes to reduce long-term hospital and emergency visits which may lead to further resource use. By adopting a fully digital protocol, Savyn also minimizes the need for physical resources, electricity use for operation, and ultimately having a positive environmental impact. Holmner et al. (2014) have noted in a study regarding the carbon footprint associated with telemedicine that replacing physical visits with telemedicine appointments resulted in a significant 40-70 times decrease in carbon emissions, which one can expect similar changes with for digitized health platforms like Savyn. Furthermore, research has revealed that “[if] half of in-person visits were replaced by virtual visits, carbon emissions would be reduced by 325,000 metric tons…[which is] equivalent to taking more than 70,000 passenger vehicles off the road for a year” (Gheorghiu, Beauséjour, & Simms, 2020). Ultimately, by reducing the demand for in-person therapy and associated travel, Savyn's digital intervention reduces the carbon footprint of the mental healthcare industry. This positively impacts the environment while providing reduced healthcare costs, improved productivity, and increased societal support for individuals with PTSD.

Increase access to trauma and PTSD therapies: 

This will be measured by the number of clients and trauma patients on our platform. We plan on adding more languages to our platform making it more accessible for different immigrant and refugee communities, increasing  the scalability of our digital solution. We also hope to expand globally to refugee camps and war-torn countries where PTSD prevalence can be as high as 38% among 79.5 million refugees (Steel et al., 2009). As the number of people displaced worldwide increases due to natural and man-made disasters, this market will only increase. From COVID-19 alone, the global PTSD prevalence is estimated to have increased by 20% (Yuan et al., 2021). By providing accessible and inclusive mental health support remotely, we can help individuals across different geographic locations, reducing the need for localized services and associated environmental impacts. Stable therapeutic options beyond the traditional in-person model will continue to be needed to plan through future crises. We will also provide new products including artificial intelligence capabilities and wearables. This will be done by expanding our team for sales, research, and product development. Digital platforms have the advantage of being easily updated and improved over time. This allows for the integration of new evidence-based practices, emerging research, feedback from users, leading to more effective and efficient PTSD healing approaches.

Reduce PTSD symptoms of users: 

Our current clinical study at Sick Kids Research Institute is yielding positive outcomes for participants diagnosed with PTSD. We measured their symptoms such as sleep, anger, reliving past moments, thoughts of self-harm prior to the study. After using Savyn for about seven to eight weeks, we reduced their symptoms by 65% which is a clinically significant score. Through this evidence based measure we hope to improve the lives of people living with trauma to be able to reframe the trauma, management of their triggers. Managing their co-morbidities such as reduced or non-dependence on substances, preventing suicidal thoughts and better manage their relationships such as better communication and ability to manage emotions.

Increase user participation in society: 

By managing difficult emotions and reducing PTSD symptoms we hope we are able to help our users achieve the following:

• Find and retain employment therefore reducing economic inequality with better income  

• Continuing education

• Participation in community

• Overall satisfaction and improvement of their quality of life

To measure this, we will follow up with surveys and questionnaires six months, one year and two years after using the platform. 

Reducing carbon emissions of the mental healthcare industry: 

Clinical data such as patient information, surveys, questionnaires, are stored digitally with Savyn, limiting paper use that in-person visits rely heavily on, contributing to a sustainable environment. This impact will be measured using qualitative assessments specific to care providers using our app. The reduced need for duplicative travel with our virtual solution reduces carbon emissions for clients, especially in geographical areas where mental health facilities are far apart. This will be measured using qualitative assessments specific to end-users using our app.

We measure our impact for Good Health and Wellbeing (Goal 3) by measuring the number of users, our partnered community organization, outreach and education programs. Through the app, we will measure the user interaction with our therapies and record their progress towards their wellness goals based on the user input. We will measure the following qualitative impact metrics using surveys that includes:

• Positive user outcomes to heal PTSD symptoms

• Managing their comorbidities such as reduced or non-dependence on substances

• Positive reframing of trauma 

• Proper management and reduced psychological triggers 

• Preventing suicidal thoughts

• Users ability to manage their relationships such as better communication and ability to manage emotions

• User participation in society   

• Find and retain employment therefore reducing economic inequality with better income  

• Continuing education

• Participation in community

• Overall satisfaction and improvement of their quality of life

As the use of Savyn grows, we will measure our impact for Reducing Inequalities (Goal 10) by measuring the number of uses over a long period of time and across different demographic groups to ensure that our application is supporting a diverse clientele. We will also measure the positive health outcomes and symptom reduction through self-reported data across different groups to ensure that marginalized communities are benefitting our solution. We will measure the number and quality of community partnerships as we develop our application. We regularly collect qualitative feedback from end-users and will continue to do so throughout the development process to ensure that they have a voice in building features that will directly benefit their lives and communities.

We will measure our impact for Climate Action (Goal 13) by measuring physical resource reduction for healthcare providers through feedback processes specific to clinicians using our application (e.g. reduction of paper resources for client visits, reduction of physical infrastructure and office space etc.). We will measure how many duplicative travel visits to physical appointments we have reduced for clients through a feedback process specific to end-users in both urban and rural contexts across different geographic communities. Collecting these statistics will ensure that we are meeting our goals for reducing carbon emissions through our digital application solution to mental healthcare. Personal statistics through the application specific to reducing carbon emissions will also be shared with care providers and end-users to help them understand their personal impact by adopting sustainable healthcare practices.

In 2022, the national average wait time for healthcare treatment was 27 weeks, reducing quality of life and increasing suicide risk (Fraser Institute, 2022). Furthermore, rural residents travel 10+ km more than urban counterparts to access mental health resources (Canada Health Infoway, 2019). To address these problems, Savyn transforms in-person clinical setup into a virtual platform. Individuals on long waitlists can address their PTSD symptoms and distress levels, while reducing future costly interventions. In-person therapy also requires multiple appointments but with limited long-term support that increases long-term hospitalization rates. Savyn centralizes activities, eliminating duplicative travel, reducing carbon emissions, and supporting long-term mental health support services. Replacing physical visits with telemedicine has the potential to reduce carbon emissions by 40-70 times (Holmner et al., 2014). Savyn minimizes the need for physical resources, reducing waste, electricity use for operation, and ultimately having a positive environmental impact.

Inputs: Savyn’s evidence-based digital PTSD therapy program, including software and user interface.

Savyn’s Activities:

• Users engage in digital assessments and exercises to address PTSD symptoms.

• Savyn provides evidence-based interventions like adapted EMDR and exposure therapy.

• Leverages technology for increased accessibility and reduced carbon emissions.

• Clinical study at Sick Kids Research Institute in Toronto to evaluate patient outcomes.

Savyn’s Outputs:

The preliminary data of Savyn’s clinical study with 25 adult patients diagnosed with PTSD is yielding positive patient outcomes.The PTSD symptoms for the users dropped by 63% using our platform and their distress levels dropped from ten to zero (ten being the highest distress). This was measured through validated assessment such as the PTSD checklist for DSM-5 (PCL-5), Subject Unit of Distress Scale (SUDS), Depression and Anxiety (GAD) assessment, and Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ) that was found comparable to in-person one-on-one therapy. Users report reduced PTSD symptoms and improved quality of life. 

Savyn’s Outcomes:

• Improved mental health and well-being for individuals with PTSD.

• Increased awareness and acceptance of digital therapy as a viable treatment option for PTSD.

• Decreased stigma surrounding PTSD and mental health more broadly.

• Decreased carbon emissions and waste production from elimination of long travel for individuals in rural and remote environments & for reduced office operations regarding therapy and treatment. 

Savyn’s Impact:

• Reduced healthcare costs associated with treating PTSD.

• Improved productivity and overall functioning for individuals with PTSD.

• Increased societal support for individuals with PTSD, leading to reduced isolation and increased access to resources.

• Positive environmental impact with limited carbon emissions and waste production while encouraging positive sustainable behaviours among clients. 

In line with the above outcomes, our long term goals anticipate: 

• Increase in access to PTSD treatment in underserved populations, remote and marginalized communities through our digital intervention 

• Reduction in drop-out rates from evidence-based PTSD treatment, compared to traditional in-person therapy

• Increase in the percentage of mental health professionals who prescribe digital interventions as part of their treatment plan

• Improved treatment adherence and engagement, with increased user empowerment and self-efficacy in managing their PTSD symptoms

• Reduction in carbon emissions of the mental healthcare industry through increased use of effective therapy via digital platforms

Savyn is a web app that has been developed on React, Javascript and a no SQL database, CouchDB. We hope to scale our current platform to include more robust database frameworks and incorporate virtual reality components in the future, especially for our exposure therapy feature. A logical direction of this initial work will be to incorporate ML/AI processes and procedures into the framework to provide a foundation for predicting success levels based on the characteristics of clients requiring the therapy. This is only possible when data has been captured and can be delivered to ML algorithms for training of AI models. Ultimately, data predictions and results can be shared with medical systems across the country providing a robust approach to refining therapy for clients based on their individual circumstances.

Currently, there are three full-time staff members, including CEO and founder Sakeena Mihar; Co-founder and Chief Scientist Vic Chiang; Jasmin Chahal, Clinical Research Lead. Our CTO is fractional contractor, Matthew Rappard.

We have 2 advisors: Dr. Benjamin Dunkley and Dr. Don Edwards who are part-time.

We also have 12 part-time team members for the research, development and marketing teams.

The founders of SavynTech have been working on our solution for four years. The company has been federally incorporated since January 2019, while Sakeena Mihar, the CEO, has been full-time on Savyn for three years since January 2020.

Sakeena Mihar is the founder and CEO of Savyn who has a computer science background and has worked in technology for over 10 years. She is an immigrant Muslim woman of color with the lived experience of PTSD, as she is a survivor of war. Vic Chiang is a neuroscientist and PhD candidate. He is an immigrant man of color from the LGBTQ2+ community who has experienced depression, is the co-founder of Savyn, providing research and scientific support as our Chief Scientist. Their combined experiences as multiply marginalized individuals within the Global North who have faced cultural and language barriers within healthcare have driven them to co-found Savyn and ensure that adequate, equitable care and support is provided to all. For the treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), not only are language and cultural barriers principal factors in explaining the lack of mental healthcare access for immigrants and refugees, but geographic barriers and the general shortage of healthcare resources regarding the limited number of psycho therapists or psychologists. For our clinical validation, we recruited participants from a variety of marginalized communities to ensure we are making human-centered decisions about our products while receiving feedback and results directly from the communities we hope to serve.

Currently, our mission of equity, inclusion, and accessibility is a core principle of Savyn’s operations and goals. Everything we do is through this lens and is reflected throughout our work, whether it is hiring team members, working with clients, we actively seek out underrepresented communities. Our team consists of a group of driven, passionate individuals from underrepresented and racialized communities, such as women of color, immigrants, and LGBTQ2+ members. Furthermore, we are currently formalizing an advisory board composed of mentors also from marginalized communities, including trauma therapists, PTSD researchers, refugee settlement and other social workers, trauma survivors, and organizations such as Amnesty International, Toronto Metropolitan University’s Office of Sexual Violence, and Syria Lifeline.

Our business model is B2B. This includes a hybrid pricing model, consisting of an enterprise subscription model for our B2B partners.  We are tentatively pricing our platform at 150 CAD per user per year on a licensing model to our B2B partners. This fee is affordable for both the users and the B2B partners, where current session for therapy is CAD 180 and up, for a single session, with clients needing atleast12 sessions to see improvements in their wellbeing, which puts the current costs at CAD 2160.

Our business model includes tiered pricing with an anticipated sales revenue of ~$10 million within 3 years based on our market share. From our B2B business model, there are 952 EMDR therapists, 150 agencies, and institutes we can collaborate with. There are over 150 clinics and agencies that serve this population in Ontario alone which is our immediate target market. Our initial clients are hospitals, private clinics, social organizations and Toronto Metropolitan University. We will leverage current connections with St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton, William Osler Health System in Peel Region, The Northpine Foundation and The Refugee Centre Montreal Quebec. We will be approaching other B2B partners such as CamH, Toronto General, Women’s College, Royal Ottawa Mental Health Center. The second wave of paying customers will come through insurance companies, employee benefits programs, veteran organizations, prison rehab programs, universities, colleges and other trauma support agencies who will become our paying partners, with a tiered licensing fee.

We hope to expand globally to refugee camps and war-torn countries where PTSD prevalence can be as high as 38%. As the number of people displaced worldwide increases due to natural and man-made disasters, this market will only increase. The COVID-19 pandemic also increased mental health challenges and the need for online PTSD psychotherapies. The global PTSD prevalence post-pandemic is estimated to have increased by 20%. Stable therapeutic options beyond the traditional in-person model will continue to be needed to plan through future crises.

Our funding plans include raising capital through grants in Ontario and Canada. We have applied for various programs in Canada for a total of 100,000 CAD, this is through i.d.e.a fund, Mitacs research funding, Healthi and Sophie funding. This will get us through the inflection point for commercialization of our product with hospitals in the Ontario and GTA. We’ve also applied for funding through Singapore Management University’s pitch competition with a prize money of 100,000 Singapore dollars which will help us with expansion into Asian markets. We are also currently in discussion with potential partners in the UK for international expansion into Europe.

We are also currently raising capital through a pre-seed angel investor round, for a total of 150,000 CAD. This will help us build a scalable technology to scale the growing customers and business partners with more patient data security and features.

We are also running pilots with a few pilots to run as paid pilot with our partners St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton with the first-responder community, The Northpine Foundation and The Refugee Centre with the refugee community, and All of You Wellness Centre with the adult trauma survivor population. Our future plan is to generate revenue with our B2B customers both in Canada and globally. We provide Savyn directly to other organizations as we follow the B2B model. Our initial clients are hospitals, private clinics, social organizations and paying customers who would come through insurance companies, employee benefits programs, veteran organizations, prison rehab programs, universities, colleges and other trauma support agencies who will become our paying partners, with a tiered licensing fee.

We have raised CAD $160,900 so far from the following sources:

• Government of Canada - $38,400

• Mitacs research funding - $7500

• RVC grant - $50,000 

• Penny Appeal Social Accelerator Fund - $10,000

• Amex DMZ Fellowship - $10,000

• Toronto Metropolitan University - Brampton Ventures Zone Fellowship - $20,000

• Ontario BioScience Innovation Organization (OBIO)  BDSP - $25,000