Mera Well Being Coach

“Provide the skills that people need to thrive in both their community and a complex world, including social-emotional competencies, problem-solving, and literacy around new technologies such as AI.”

India is facing a mental health crisis, particularly among its students and adolescents. UNESCO’s 2021 SOWC report highlights that roughly 1 in 7 young adults in India reported: “often feeling depressed or disinterested.”  India's National Mental Health Survey 2015–2016 reveals distressing figures, with a suicide rate of 9.52 per 100,000 among adolescents and a shortage of mental health professionals reaching critical levels. These figures are, in all likelihood, much lower than the real numbers - mental health issues often go unreported due to a lack of awareness and stigma.

In India, where the demand for mental health professionals far exceeds the supply, traditional intervention models, fully reliant on human resources alone, will neither be accessible nor affordable for the foreseeable future. With only one counselor for every 250,000 students and a scarcity of trained psychiatrists, psychologists, and school counselors, the existing infrastructure cannot support the burgeoning mental well-being and health needs of the student and adult population.

Compounding the problem is cultural beliefs that often stigmatize discussion on access to mental health learning resources and support.  Content about socio-emotional learning is scattered, inaccessible, and often out of reach for normal teachers and students. Anonymous access to scientifically sound and organized SEL and well-being resources is rare for adolescents..

This has severe consequences, both for the individuals themselves and also for the economy. Unaddressed mental health issues impact not only students’ academic performance but also their social relationships and overall well-being. The World Health Organization estimates a colossal economic loss of USD 1.03 trillion between 2012-2030 due to mental health conditions. 

A survey carried out by the Government of India (https://manodarpan.education.gov.in/assets/downloads/Mental_Health_WSS_A_Survey.pdf) has also asked to “monitor and promote the mental health issues and concerns of students and teachers and to facilitate providing of support to address the mental health and psychosocial aspects”. It found the following : 

“ As students moved from the middle to secondary stage, a visible decline was observed in them feeling confident about their physical appearance, satisfaction with personal and school life, availability of people to share their feelings and experiencing happiness. At the secondary stage, the students reported feeling more anxious about studies, examinations and results. They also reported increased difficulty in concentrating and frequent mood swings.

Our solution offers an enterprise-level offering to address this well-being deficit in a tech-enabled, evidence-based, administrator agency-focused manner that empowers students. By empowering teachers to become agents of change and providing adolescents with accessible, engaging resources, we lay the groundwork for a generation equipped to navigate life's challenges with resilience and empathy.

Our solution, Mera (My) Well-Being Coach, incorporates: 

1. Well-Being Pulse Survey: Generates real-time evidence for school administrators’ awareness of the need for well-being skills in teachers and students.

2. Science-based resources: Provide customized solutions, including teacher training and resources,  engaging content for adolescents to build social and emotional learning competencies.

3. Teacher Training MOOC: Train teachers on SEL skills to improve personal well-being and classroom behavior.

4. Counseling services for teachers and students via remote call-center. 

Our bot, titled, Mera Well-Being Coach, addresses the needs of students, teachers, and school administrations, ensuring all three work together to create a safe space for exploration and growth on well-being topics. It provides administrators with digital dashboards to track well-being and digital and engaging SEL content for teachers and students. It includes interactive games designed to enhance adolescents' self-awareness, emotional literacy, and brain health information in a non-academic setting. By gamifying the social and emotional learning experience process, we capture today’s tech-savvy youth’s attention while also generating data and insights for school administrators, who can customize solutions for the mental health issues in their schools.

Our four-pillar solution is powered by Swift Chat By Convegenius, our tech partner (Best AI App on Google Play in 2023). This pioneering bot platform is redefining educational access, serving over 150 million. Sai Shiko will provide the content, pedagogy, and training, while SwiftChat will be our tech and distribution partner. 

Our digital-first solution allows scaling up, to reach 250 million adolescents and 9 million teachers. A 2023 ASER study has shown that digital penetration and engagement for educational content are growing. 94% of youth have access to a smartphone, and 66% use smartphones for educational-related activities (watching videos online, resolving doubts, exchanging notes). 

Pillar 1: Well-Being Pulse Survey for Awareness and Real-Time Feedback

With the help of life-skill experts with deep domain knowledge, we have created effective, low-cognitive-load self-report surveys for tracking the well-being of teachers and students. Results reflected in dashboards are available to school administrators. These surveys are run via the SwiftChat Platform.

Once the school-level evidence is generated, school administrators can see specific areas of SEL intervention at the school level. Heightened awareness translates into momentum for action. 

Pillar 2: Learning And Training for Teachers

We focus on teachers as the first point of change and catalysts for change in the school environment. With the deep expertise of clinical psychologists, we create bite-sized training content to upgrade teacher skills to balance emotion and cognition in school, drive better classroom interactions, and detect early warnings of behavior in adolescents who may need positive nudging and support throughout their school day. 

Pillar 3: Engaging Gamified Content for Students

Engage adolescents by creating a series of games on social-emotional aspects in an embodied experience manner via 2-D games that can be downloaded on Swift AI.

Pillar 4:  Remotely Set up  - Call Center

Provide expert psychologist support for teachers to discuss personal well-being and teaching effectiveness, classroom management related to motivation, and student effort. Services are available for adolescents as well. 

Our solution has three key stakeholders: Teachers, Students, and School Administrations.

We want to impact the lives of teachers and adolescents directly through schools since schools play a critical role in helping students establish lifelong healthy relational and self-management behaviors. India has 9.5 million teachers and 253 million adolescents aged 10 to 19. Teachers are usually not paid high salaries to invest in their well-being and professional development. Further, we cannot share science-based knowledge on well-being, brain health, and social and emotional levels at individual or household levels at scale. Teachers’ well-being impacts students’ and their own household’s well-being. 

Similarly, students empowered with knowledge can create sustained readiness for behavior change and positive decisions while diffusing some understanding with peers and parents at home. In the structured environment of the school system, we can offer science-based well-being content, training, and services. 

• Teachers

Given the additional hours required to integrate a social and emotional learning curriculum, the first change point is training teachers with skills. We can achieve training within government-mandated professional development hours. Usually, these professional development hours focus on ‘subject-specific training’—but we can train on “ managing emotion and cognition to drive better learning outcomes,” essentially converting each teacher into a ‘mini-counselor, ‘ equivalent to a ‘mental well-being paramedic’ (vs. doctor).

• Adolescents. 

All the student time in class is fully committed to ‘academic subjects taught in a structured manner and for which examination is conducted periodically. Social and Emotional Learning, which addresses sensitive issues ‘like anxiety, and ‘bullying’, exam stress, peer pressure, needs anonymity to engage and discuss and also a format that is engaging enough. Through gamified storytelling and ‘no-performance’  pressure, we can achieve awareness and learn on concepts, vocabulary, and cognitive change.

• School administration

Our solution empowers school administrators to make better and more well-informed decisions about their students’ and teachers’ well-being. Real-time anonymized data from surveys provides a first level of information on the state of mental well-being in the school. Based on that, administrators can work towards building specific solutions and creating a better overall environment in the school.

We are well-positioned to deliver the solution for three distinct but critical reasons. 

1. Our technology partnerships with Convegenius and Swift AI. Our Mera Well-Being will be hosted on this platform, which is already home to friendly AI bots that can help you learn, teach, and manage educational tasks. These bots make learning enjoyable and teaching more effective, offering support at every step. The platform reached 150 million learners and was voted the best AI app by Google in 2023.  Our technology is being built with Convegenius as a tech-distribution partner that already has the scale and reach in the public school system in India, with which we can develop a plug-and-play solution for all schools and create early and fast testing opportunities.  

1. Our mental well-being partner, Path International, is a global foundation focusing on health and exploring the promise of digital mental well-being solutions. Our common focus is on addressing adolescents. More than 13 percent of adolescents aged 13 to 17 residing in Indian urban metropolitan areas experience mental health problems such as depression, anxiety, and substance abuse. We receive the highest-quality expert advice on digital and mental health at NO cost from Path’s experts.

1. Our in-house team of educators, creatives, clinical psychologists, and game design talent has vast experience and expertise in pedagogy, cirriculum, and learning design. They are building bite-sized, and engaging content quickly to respond to early traction on the bot and see which issues are trending and generating conversations ( for example, exam anxiety, bullying, body images, lack of mentors, household conditions, career prospects).

2. Our location: Our core team is based in New Delhi, India’s capital. Our first scale-pilot will be at Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Schools of Specialized Excellence (ASOSEs) – which are choice-based schools for grades 9 to 12 that allow students to specialize in their chosen fields of study in Delhi. (https://www.edudel.nic.in/about/sose) The Government of NCT of Delhi has established Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Schools of Specialized Excellence to cater to students with a demonstrated interest and aptitude in specific domains. This is a unique opportunity to implement our pilot in the city we are based in and in 55  government-run schools. 

The idea of creating a school-level social and emotional solution emerged in 2018, on the eve of COVID-19. Due to school-wide and country-wide closures, our team focused on creating pedagogically sound frameworks and content. Once we had sufficient content resources, we pitched online teacher training programs in 4 premium schools in New Delhi, which had expressed an urgent need to address the well-being of teachers and students. We reached 1000+ teachers 300+ in group training online and offline formats. We tracked our Net Promoter Scores among teacher training and received a score of 8+ during these trainings. 

We had, however, realized that we would not be able to scale this solution without creating a holistic solution that trained teachers in blended formats and simultaneously provided content to students in an engaging manner, and also allowed administrators to see evidence of the ‘specific’ SEL need and possible solutions that suited their schools. In some cases, we needed to focus more on “bullying” as a school issue; in others, “career anxiety” or “exam anxiety. “  

Across the board, we received feedback that teachers must be ‘equipped’ first. We, therefore, began to evaluate various Learning Management Systems we could create. However, the rapidly evolving SAAS landscape and availability of subscription-based LMS allowed us to focus on content and “hire” LMS services when needed.

During COVID, we didn't make any tech investments, focussing instead on delivering lessons on Zoom at minimal costs. We also continued to work on brand and content. Every school used a different LMS, so we quickly realized that a technology partner with existing distribution in K-12 would be appropriate. After evaluating several options, we closed an MOU with Convegenius, which had begun to create an AI platform. 

In 2019, AI was nascent. However, the potential was clear. We closed our partnership and began designing the flow for a rule-based chatbot on which we would deliver our teacher MOOCs, teacher and student surveys, and well-being games for adolescents. We communicated with experts, including Martin Seligman, on leveraging games to develop resilience. We got positive feedback on the idea and evaluated use cases where games were used for positive behavior change, particularly in brain health. 

The challenge, once again, was to build engaging games that required minimal investment. Engagement is critical to sustained adolescent interest. Unless we build engaging games, we cannot sustain interest in SEL concepts like “amygdala hijack” or “ relationship building.” At the same time, in a gamified way, we can show how emotional decisions can change outcomes, which collaboration could solve in a team. We have already created our game avatars - and scenarios - however, we require funds to build an engaging, good visual game that is multi-user and can involve adolescents in positive outcomes like empathy, collaboration, decision-making, self-awareness, and goal-directed behavior (CORE SEL framework). 

We also leveraged consultancy from clinical psychologists and educators in our core team, as pedagogically sound content, training material, and a game are necessary to launch an MVP. We have also hired a Life-Skill expert to design technically valid surveys. In the Indian context, we are building content in Hindi and English and have hired a language expert.

So far, we have remained a boot-strapped start-up. Co-founders do not take salaries. 

Finally, we have already closed partnerships with schools to test our solution when ready within the next 6-8 months.  

With our teams, partnerships, content, and human resources in place, we need rapid support to build our rule-based bot, create our online training programs into self-paced MOOCs and bite-sized content, and deliver an engaging Social and Emotional Learning Game for adolescents on our platform.

Barriers:

A first-of-its-kind, digital-first SEL solution in India faces several challenges related to” need awareness,” equal priority,” and “digital-first approach- experimentation”

India faces a learning outcomes challenge across it’s public school and affordable private school system.  There is a need to focus on driving foundational numeracy and literacy in the government school system and other academic support. However, SEL must be equally prioritized. Government and philanthropic resources, funding, and tools currently focus on learning outcomes across education subjects. SEL is not prioritized, and there is no ‘extra’ time within an already packed school schedule. We can break this need down by generating tech tools to collect self-reported evidence from teachers and students. We need user design and tech support to guide the design of our behavior change games and gamification guidance on social and emotional learning games with the backing of MIT’s Behavior Research Lab.

Cultural Barriers: In designing any SEL solutions, we have to remain alert to contextual, vernacular, socio-income-related social norms and also aspects of well-being implementation. By remaining firmly grounded in science-based brain health information, we aim to overcome some of these aspects. It would be helpful to connect with other organizations in MIT’s network that successfully implemented similar initiatives despite cultural barriers is a learning we seek to have from academia focused on understanding contextual education needs. 

Financial Barriers:

SEL , ED-Tech entrepreneurs focusing on social and emotional learning (SEL) products encounter financial barriers when seeking funding (MIT Solve Team: Reference WEF Report, page 26, Exhibit 4 ) due to lack of consensus on assessment and measurement of SEL programs and outcomes. This disagreement on assessment further complicates demonstrating SEL product effectiveness to potential investors. The competitive landscape exacerbates these barriers, with investors perceiving subject-focused solutions as safer investments. SEL entrepreneurs need collaborative efforts to attract funding compared to other segments. Additionally, the gradual nature of SEL's impact may need to align with investors' short-term return expectations. To address these barriers, robust evaluation methodologies for SEL interventions and investor education on the importance of social and emotional learning are needed. Advocacy for greater investment in SEL is crucial to overcome these challenges and ensure the development of effective SEL products and services.

1. Tech-enabled, data-driven School Specific Real-Time Evidence and Administrator Agency Tool: There is no tracking/awareness of school-level social-emotional well-being of teachers and students and main themes behind underlying reasons behind the same ( exam anxiety, career for students, professional development of teachers, classroom discipline). Our school pulse surveys, designed by life-skill experts, can raise awareness of teacher and student well-being but also provide administrators with evidence to understand grade and context-specific themes and underlying causes. This will allow the agency to respond and decide on interventions to address. 

2. Science-Based, Age - Appropriate, Structured, and Organized Content Resources for Teachers and Students.  Providing science-based science, age-appropriate information on brain health, habit, behavior, emotional resilience, and tools for focus and attention, which psychologists and psychiatrists have curated through our BOT, will create conversations that drive information and learning opportunities for educators and students to develop a common well-being science-based vocabulary to create opportunity for nudges and self - driven change in behavior. If there is enough science-based information on the role of sleep deprivation and classroom focus, students may self-reflect on the same behavior. 

3. An engaging game that creates awareness of the link between emotions, social interaction, and decisions is a reflection tool that allows students to self-reflect. 

4. An enterprise solution with a school-wide and stakeholder-wide impact—teachers, students, and admin—leads to an effort to build better mental health. Students are in school for 4-6 hours and have been there every day for 12 years. Enterprise solutions are essential to catalyzing well-being outside of the home setting, which cannot be ‘accessed’ to support individual teachers and students. 

5. Support and catalyze policy initiatives with innovative tools to achieve the goals of ‘holistic child development’ by bridging the gap between policy intent and practical administrative and teacher and student tools. (Manodarpan Survey, referred to above). Towards making learning more holistic instead of rote learning-based

6. Changing the landscape: by raising awareness about SEL, removing stigma related to mental health, and getting society to see SEL programs as valuable investments for schools.

Theory of Change Framework: 

In the context of India, where there's a significant gap in counselor-to-student ratio, low learning outcomes, and a pervasive stigma surrounding mental well-being interventions, establishing a comprehensive Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) framework within schools becomes imperative.

At the core of this framework lies a well-defined theory of change, recognizing that nurturing social and emotional competencies is fundamental to academic success and overall well-being. This theory guides the integration of critical components tailored to address the unique challenges faced within the Indian educational landscape.

To begin with, well-being surveys serve as a crucial tool for understanding the emotional climate of the school community. These surveys, conducted regularly among students, teachers, and staff, provide insights into prevalent social and emotional needs despite the scarcity of counselors. By identifying areas requiring targeted interventions, schools can address these challenges systematically.

Teacher training on SEL is pivotal in empowering educators to support students’ emotional growth effectively. Given the limited resources and high stigma surrounding mental health discussions, providing comprehensive training programs becomes essential. Through workshops and seminars, teachers learn strategies to create inclusive and supportive classroom environments, fostering empathy, resilience, and positive relationships among students.

Developing culturally sensitive student content focused on SEL is aligned with teacher training. Integrating these materials into the curriculum across various subjects ensures consistent support for students' social and emotional development. Students learn crucial skills to manage their emotions, communicate effectively, and navigate interpersonal relationships despite the prevailing stigma by incorporating engaging activities and reflective discussions.

However, implementing SEL initiatives at scale poses challenges, particularly concerning resource allocation and support. To address these issues, an integrated school enterprise solution includes call center services supporting teacher and student well-being. Despite the shortage of counselors, trained professionals staff these call centers, offering guidance, resources, and counseling remotely. This approach not only bridges the gap in counselor availability but also helps overcome the stigma associated with seeking help for mental well-being concerns by off-site councilors, adding a layer of anonymity.

In essence, the integrated SEL framework tailored for the Indian context provides a comprehensive approach to address the challenges of low counselor-to-student ratio, low learning outcomes, and stigma surrounding mental well-being. By leveraging well-being surveys, teacher training, culturally sensitive student content, and remote call center services, schools can foster a social and emotional competence culture, empowering students and educators to thrive academically, emotionally, and socially despite the prevailing challenges.

Overall Impact Goal: To cultivate a psychologically safe and thriving school community where students, teachers, and administrators possess common and science-based vocabulary and skills to drive their own well-being and leverage well-being to drive growth and improvement.

Given the low level of awareness, in Phase 1, we are using only user-engagement metrics to measure progress. In Phase 2 of our product, We measure progress towards this goal through a variety of indicators across different user groups:

Students:

1. User Engagement with SEL content:  How many and how long do adolescents stay on the Chat Bot platform, watch time of videos, progress to subsequent lessons, correct answers to quiz question

Teachers:

1. Engagement with content: on the platform, watching videos, downloading teacher resources – readiness to take a SEL professional development course. 

2. Usage time on non-instructional days. 

School Admin:

1. Qualitative Feedback on Well-Being Survey Dashboard’s Relevance for Well-Being Interventions for Teachers and Students. 

2. Additional Considerations:

By tracking these indicators over time, we can assess the platform's effectiveness in fostering social-emotional growth, improving mental well-being, and creating a positive school environment for all.

We complement quantitative data with focus groups, student essays, and teacher feedback to better understand user experiences and the platform's impact on their lives.

Parental Involvement: We may include surveys to assess parental perception of their child's social-emotional development and school experience.

This data-driven approach allows us to continuously improve our platform and maximize its positive impact on the school community.

There are three kinds of unique technologies powering our solution.

Rule-Based AI Student-Facing Chatbot

SwiftChat App (For Students and Teachers): SwiftChat is a user-friendly mobile app available for download by students and teachers. It is currently India’s leading AI bot app and has collaborated with many state and local governments.)  

• This chatbot serves as a personal companion for students, offering support and resources for mental well-being and social-emotional learning (SEL). Pre-programmed responses and activities are triggered by student inputs such as keywords, phrases, or specific emotions expressed. Its advantages are that it is reliable and efficient for handling frequent student queries related to anxiety, stress, goal setting, and social interactions. It offers immediate, 24/7 access to support and resources, even outside of school hours.

• School Admin Dashboard: A web-based dashboard provides school administrators with valuable insights into the overall impact of Mera Well-Being Coach on their school community.

• For Students: Interactive modules on SEL topics with engaging activities, quizzes, and self-assessments Access to EmBot for personalized support and confidential conversations. Mindfulness exercises and relaxation techniques to promote emotional well-being.

• For Teachers: Comprehensive and holistic MOOC to enable SEL facilitation A library of lesson plans and activities aligned with CASEL's SEL framework Tools for creating custom SEL lessons and integrating them into existing curriculum Access to anonymized student data on SEL progress, allowing teachers to identify areas needing support.

Features: Survey Insights: Visualize and analyze data from pre and post-surveys to track progress on SEL goals and overall student and staff well-being. Student Engagement: Monitor student usage of the SwiftChat app and identify trends in student interaction with specific features. Data Visualization: Interactive charts and graphs to clearly communicate trends in student well-being, classroom climate, and teacher stress levels.

• 4 full-time staff

• 2 subcontractors for games – and adolescents in city-based government schools. 

• 1 Life Skill Survey Design Consultant

We have been working on digital solution for 6 months. 

1. We are a women-led team. Both our co-founders are women. Three of our four employees are women. Our mental well-being consultant is a mother to a special needs child, a medical doctor, and a psychiatrist. Her approach to our entire solution will focus on both special needs children as part of our solution. Our Life Skills Consultant has worked in low-income communities and brings in a perspective that understands and respects diversity.

2. As we have yet to be funded, we support our small team with investments in their professional development. We are not outsourcing high-value work, but rather building in-house new skills and experience. Their professional development is agnostic, then, to our venture’s eventual success. This way, we are fair to our workforce even when we are bootstrapped.

3. Being a digital-first mental well-being organization, we foster an environment where all team members feel comfortable sharing ideas, expressing concerns, and making mistakes without fear of judgment or retribution. We facilitate regular team discussions on diversity and inclusion topics, and have developed clear guidelines for respectful communication and conflict resolution. 

4. We also want to add a team of freelancers/adolescents from various school systems, government schools to our team to understand their interactions with digital options for sourcing health-related content. These will be paid internship positions.

The business model operates as a socially responsible enterprise, aiming to promote social and emotional learning (SEL) across schools while addressing disparities in resource access products and services. Premium schools are offered a suite of SEL services, including well-being pulse surveys, teacher professional development in SEL,  teacher and student resources, games, and counseling services on a pay as you go for a fee. 

Simultaneously, the business extends the same low-bono or pro-bono services to low-fee-paying or no-fee government schools, ensuring equitable access to SEL support. These schools, often underserved and lacking financial resources, benefit from subsidized or free SEL services the enterprise provides. This approach fosters inclusivity and social impact by democratizing access to essential SEL resources. This approach also generates evidence in every fee-paying category to establish that SEL Is not good service but a pressing need for all adolescents. 

To support SEL implementation in low-bono or pro-bono school settings, the business seeks to raise corporate social responsibility (CSR) and philanthropic capital. By partnering with corporations and philanthropic organizations committed to educational equity and well-being, the enterprise secures funding to sustain its initiatives in underserved communities.

In this model, premium schools serve as customers, paying for the services rendered, while low-fee-paying or no-fee-paying schools are beneficiaries, receiving subsidized or free SEL support, paid for by strategic partnerships with corporates and philanthropists. The enterprise ensures that SEL interventions reach those who need them most, regardless of their financial capacity.

Overall, the business model embodies a commitment to social impact and educational equity. It leverages market-driven revenue streams from premium schools to fund SEL initiatives in underserved communities through CSR and philanthropic support.

The business model operates as a socially responsible enterprise, aiming to promote social and emotional learning (SEL) across schools while addressing disparities in resource access products and services. Premium schools are offered a suite of SEL services, including well-being pulse surveys, teacher professional development in SEL,  teacher and student resources, games, and counseling services on a pay as you go for a fee. 

Simultaneously, the business extends the same low-bono or pro-bono services to low-fee-paying or no-fee government schools, ensuring equitable access to SEL support. These schools, often underserved and lacking financial resources, benefit from subsidized or free SEL services the enterprise provides. This approach fosters inclusivity and social impact by democratizing access to essential SEL resources. This approach also generates evidence in every fee-paying category to establish that SEL Is not good service but a pressing need for all adolescents. 

To support SEL implementation in low-bono or pro-bono school settings, the business seeks to raise corporate social responsibility (CSR) and philanthropic capital. By partnering with corporations and philanthropic organizations committed to educational equity and well-being, the enterprise secures funding to sustain its initiatives in underserved communities.

In this model, premium schools serve as customers, paying for the services rendered, while low-fee-paying or no-fee-paying schools are beneficiaries, receiving subsidized or free SEL support, paid for by strategic partnerships with corporates and philanthropists. The enterprise ensures that SEL interventions reach those who need them most, regardless of their financial capacity.

Overall, the business model embodies a commitment to social impact and educational equity. It leverages market-driven revenue streams from premium schools to fund SEL initiatives in underserved communities through CSR and philanthropic support.