A Vancouver man is drawing inspiration from his own struggles with mental health to try to help others using technology.
Aidan Scott is the co-founder and CEO of Speakbox, an app that aims to connect people experiencing mental health issues with a local health service provider. It also lets users journal and share their thoughts with a professional.
Scott's personal journey with mental health began when he was a teenager.
"I went through trauma and coming out of that had post-traumatic stress disorder, and was dealing with depression and anxiety and a number of other things," Scott said. "It was a really low point in my life, and at that same time, I didn't know how to reach out. I didn't know how to ask for help."
Now, he hopes to channel those experiences into making the Speakbox app as helpful as possible.
"We hear a lot of these stories in the news about people having to get to rock bottom and then mental health gets better," he said. "That was the inspiration behind Speakbox: To say, 'what if we could change that narrative and people did not have to get to rock bottom? What if they had tools and resources where they could start talking early?'"
Scott and co-founders Valentin Prugnaud and Benjamin George have been working on the app for two years. Their company is based in Vancouver.
Speakbox is available for iPhone and Android devices.
