RADIO TONI with Toni Lontis

Talking Points Radio Toni – Every Day Business with – Briony Schadegg

Briony Schadegg HCI Founder, Director & Secretary (Human Computer Interaction)

Briony Shadegg, during her time as a police officer has over 15 years of lived experience in dealing with trauma and challenges to wellbeing.

Together with Ben Fink, Danny Connery and Joesph Cassar founded HCI Insights, an Australian developed and owned company based in SA in 2017.

Their Mission “To empower users and organizations to positively and actively manage their wellbeing for improved ability to meet positive individual and organizational goals”

Welcome to Radio Toni we are so privileged to talk to you tonight Briony

First lets quickly talk about how the trauma of policing changed the way you thought about wellbeing? This experience drove your desire for better and that led to the new app Frank.

1. Briony can you tell me about why you and the team developed FRANK?

- was developed around concepts and research findings described in The General Theory of Crime, Social Learning Theories, the Dunedin Longitudinal Multidisciplinary Study and others like it, during Briony's Policing Studies.

Protection of privacy & user information

2. How is Frank meant to be used?

- Franks is designed for installation on personal devices. It analyses the user's natural language using our cutting-edge machine learning algorithms to provide mood and emotional feedback, patterns and trends for individuals and organizations.

3. How do you protect a user’s privacy whilst using this app?

Our user’s right to privacy has been at the forefront of every design decision we have made. Not breaching the trust of our users and setting the highest standard of integrity is paramount to us.

4. What sort of positive investment to you hope to achieve for organization?

For organizations seeking competitive advantage, an investment in employee wellbeing is crucial in meeting organizational goals. Frank will do this by providing insights to empower your organization to act in a timely manner to achieve positive outcomes.

Frank aims to facilitate:

- Reduced absenteeism and presenteeism

- Improved organizational loyalty

- Improved employee & recruit perception as an employer of choice

5. What sort of positive investment to you hope to achieve for organizations?

According to WHO, there is a 4:1 positive return on investment in wellbeing for individuals, organizations, the community and government.

6. How will the FRANK measure its success? Frank provides a unique measure of success that previously was not captured other than by way of anecdotal or survey evidence which can be unreliable.

7. What is behind naming the app FRANK?

8. What are some of the achievements for Frank so far?

• Our current shareholders are all South Australian based or ex-South Australians.

• We are an organization of choice for Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) internship program, mainly for machine learning.

• Our pilot is being independently run by Dr Miranda Van Hooff, Ex Director of Military and Emergency Services Health Australia.

• We have started securing foundation customer organizations such as Police Health and in final stages of negotiations and approvals with SA Department of Treasury and Finance, Scotch College and Gallagher Bassett.

• We have regularly seek the advice of our Advisory Board Chair Leesa Chesser, former SA Minister for Disability, Mental Health and Substance Abuse. We also periodically seek advise from; Professor Alexander McFarlane Dr Paula Dabovich Raymond Spencer Glen Rosie David Knox

9. What’s next for the team behind Frank?

Pilot

The first phase of Frank’s pilot is being facilitated by Dr Miranda van Hooff and her team at MESHA. The pilot is open to Australian Android users and over 200 people have been onboard so far. With the pilot still active, we have sent some data to MESHA for preliminary analysis, with an assessment to be provided in the next couple of weeks. 

Early feedback regarding the open-source keyboard, utilized solely for phase one pilot, was consistent with our assumptions, and has presented some challenges for pilot users, but is providing HCI with the necessary data to make an informed and objective assessment on our hypothesis. 

We have secured three pilot organizations for the 2nd Phase Pilot and have generated interest from other organizations, which we are exploring.

Just a reminder, please “like” us on Facebook and LinkedIn

Capital Raise

Our capital raise round is open with the round closing on 30 June. Thank you to those who have reinvested and welcome to our new investors.

Just a reminder that we have applied for a grant through the South Australian Government’s Research and Commercialisation Startup Fund (RCSF). The RCSF grant will provide significant leverage for investors, with the grant (if approved) making up 44% of our investment round. Matching the funding dollar-for-dollar is a requirement of our application, so we appreciate anyone who can make a financial commitment. The due date is 30 April 2021 to demonstrate matched funding ($350,000). Failure to do so will require HCI to restart the RCSF application process again. While not preferable, it’s certainly not catastrophic. We have all of the documentation from the EOI stage, as well as the final application, and should be able to progress through quite quickly, with the results from phase one pilot in hand as well.

We have submitted an application to a few VC and Angel funds. In addition to investor dinners/presentations through CoVentured and Innovation Bay, to help boost the raise. Results of some of our applications are still pending. However, our Impaqt Fund application is looking promising and we will have a result in early June.

We have been selected as a finalist for Innovation Bay’s Startup Showcase at Southstart and will pitch on the 4th May in Adelaide. Our Southern Angels application has also been successful and we will be presenting to them on 3rd May.

We are also exploring the 2:1:1 matched funding opportunity with the Digital Health CRC after recently speaking with CEO, Dr Terry Sweeney.

Briony’s SheEO membership and involvement in SheEO and Chooks SA continues to be fruitful, providing great exposure and presenting some of our current opportunities and new investment.

Our Social Lights Podcast interview took place last week and we are waiting for it to be published online.

We presented at Australian Healthcare Week Pitchfest, after being selected as one of eight finalists from over 65 startups throughout Australia. We didn’t win but were honoured to be selected amongst some very high calibre (and well-funded) startups, gained some terrific exposure, received some excellent feedback and made some great connections.

Special Announcement

As mentioned briefly above….

We have been selected as a finalist for Innovation Bay’s Startup Showcase at Southstart in May. We have been advised by the Events Manager that the event attracted a high number of applicants resulting in a highly competitive selection process. As you can imagine, we’re really excited about this opportunity.

Our Southern Angels application has also been successful and we will be presenting to them in May as well.

10 How can people be part of the development?

Sign up to be part of our pilot (individual/organization) https://www.frankapp.ai Or email us about becoming a foundation customer (individual/organization) via the website or... hello@frankapp.ai

Briony finally tell me about your vision of the future, especially around the uptake of the frankapp?