Abu Dhabi's Ma'an rolls out accelerator for ventures centered on mental health

Abu Dhabi's Ma’an has selected six social enterprises from around the world to take part in its first accelerator programme that will focus on increasing usage of mental wellbeing services in the emirate.

The inaugural cohort are ventures tackling mental health, a social priority determined earlier this season by the Abu Dhabi government in response to the growing dependence on initiatives in your community to help negate the social impact of Covid-19.

“The launch of the accelerator programme signifies Ma’an’s commitment to benefitting Abu Dhabi’s community through empowering social enterprises in the emirate, encouraging Abu Dhabi’s third sector and addressing key social priorities," Salama Al Ameemi, director general of Ma’an, said.

Communities all over the world have observed unprecedented demand for mental healthcare, spurring investment into ventures centered on supporting existing services.

In the UAE, demand for counselling via tele-health services surged during the pandemic, according to health authorities. The quantity of individual counselling sessions reached about 5,600 from April to October, according to data shared ahead of World Mental Health Day in October.

The six ventures are being provided with work place and licence registration at ADGM, Abu Dhabi's financial free zone, together with one-on-one mentorship and coaching through Plug and Play ADGM, and introductions to potential customers and investors.

Ma’an will also offer market information and access to a network of industry professionals and government entities, including major healthcare providers and insurers to aid the cohort’s theme of mental health.

One of the goals of the programme is to attract impactful global social enterprises to use in the emirate, increasing the quantity of social enterprises legally certified in Abu Dhabi and strengthening collaboration between the private, public and so-called 'third sector' entities through engagement and new contracts.

Participants include Healium, a US company that uses virtual reality goggles to monitor well-being. These devices monitors brain activity and encourages users to self-regulate brain patterns when under stress. Users purchase a subscription service, which sometimes appears as a drug-less solution to mental medical issues.

Australia's Tali can be taking part. The company developed a kind of therapy to check and treat attention deficit disorder in children via an online game. The technology was patented in the US and Japan and has a large number of users in Australia. Some 136 million children are understood to really have the condition, with Tali a non-medicinal method of tackle a worldwide issue.

Ma'an's new programme premiered earlier this month via an online orientation day and can conclude in March throughout a demo day where in fact the enterprises will demonstrate their progress in developing applications for the Abu Dhabi market.

Ma’an was established in February 2019 by the Department of Community Development in the administrative centre under the Ghadan 21 stimulus fund.