Building mindora to transform mental health tracking: my story

Hi 👋 I’m Kerry and I’m the CEO and co-founder of PhenoML, we’re building mindora-mental health tracking, for real. I’ll be honest, I’m nervous about writing this story. So many of us want others to trust that we have it together, always. You might project a confident image even while you’re crumbling on the inside. I’m sharing this story to give you a window into my motivation for building mindora and also, to let you know, you’re not alone.

It was March 2007, I had that awful sinking feeling in my stomach and my hands were numb. I had been handed back the fourth exam in a row that was a failing grade. I was officially failing all of my classes in my freshman spring semester at MIT. My entire self worth up until that point was based on my ability to perform academically, so faced with failure across the board I felt completely and utterly worthless.

Most of my friends from undergrad don’t even know this about me because I was so ashamed at what was happening. It wasn’t for lack of studying! I would spend hours preparing but then, staring down the paper I would blank out or confuse myself and end up writing down the correct answer only to erase it or scratch it out. After summoning the courage first, to admit I needed help and then, to speak to someone at MIT student services, I started to work with a therapist on my test anxiety. I practiced self affirmations, meditation, visualization, and completely revamped my studying habits. Slowly and surely I made progress and eventually finished off the semester with solid grades across the board and later on even falling in love with the field of biological engineering and measuring health.

Over the years (including earlier this year) while experiencing periods of significant transition or stress, I’ve felt those numb hands again and that pit in my stomach. Often, because I was so focused on school or work I wouldn’t even realize it until later, when I’d notice I hadn’t eaten anything other than cereal for dinner that week, my jaw ached from grinding my teeth at night, or that I couldn’t remember the last day I hadn’t cried. Mental health issues sneak up on you, particularly if you’ve developed strong coping habits. But there’s no weight scale for anxiety or depression, you can’t prick your finger and measure your mood, memory, or focus. I’ve built my career in health measurement, it is incredibly frustrating that we are so in the dark on what’s going on with our minds.

As an engineer and data scientist I’ve built tools to analyze blood cells using high power lasers, created machine learning models to predict diseases like COVID-19 using health records, and analyzed how people interact and engage in digital health mobile apps. But to obtain information from people on their mental health, although significant innovations have been made, most of the options available just ask people how they feel. While studies have shown the inherent benefit of mood tracking through informing people how their emotional state is changing, it’s challenging to understand what’s impacting you particularly if there are other issues present like changes in the ability to plan, organize, or remember details or even to identify and name the emotions you’re feeling in the first place.

Meanwhile, in the consumer data science world, we can predict where you’re going to click, what move you’ll make in a game, or whether you’ll scroll to the bottom of this page. As data scientists we measure all sorts of information, from what kinds of content people are interested in, attributes they tell us and what we infer about them to make predictions about what you’ll do next.

And that’s why we’re building mindora- taking best in class engagement from mobile games fused with neuroscientific measurement, powered by AI. Empowering people to gain better clarity and insight into their mental health. And oh yeah, making it really fun.

Sound cool? Learn more and sign up for early access at mindora-mental health tracking, for real!

And follow along with us as we build mindora!