Derry start-up company to showcase their work at Mobile World Congress

Digital Health start up Co-Founders, Leeann Monk and Jennifer Neff, travelled to Barcelona on Monday to present their technology, Elemental, to eHealth leaders and connect with a panel of investors and experts from across the globe.

As winners of the European Connected Health Alliance Investor Challenge 2016, the female tech entrepreneurs have been awarded a speaking slot during the plenary conference and will benefit from great exposure throughout the eHealth community during the Mobile World Congress.

“We are delighted to have Leeann and Jennifer as winners of the European Challenge.” said Brian O’Connor, Chair, ECHAlliance, who says that the Derry entrepreneurs were selected from applicants from across the world in the Investor Challenge.

He continued: “This is a key event for us to showcase Elemental Software as drivers in the latest trends in ICT healthcare solutions. They will pitch their product to experts and an investor panel consisting of key influencers who can help them take their business to the next level.”

The innovative digital platform Elemental, dubbed the ‘match.com of health’ – connects people deemed to be at risk of developing long term conditions such as Type 2 diabetes and depression to specific community based activities suited to them and their ability, to reduce their health risk.

Co-Founder Leeann said: “In the beginning it was all about equipping healthcare professionals anywhere and on any device with the technology to prescribe social activities specific to reducing people’s health risks so we called it My Social Prescription.

“After intense mentoring from Derry City and Strabane District Council’s Grow Digital and Clinical Translational and Innovation Programmes we discovered that not only were we creating the software to generate bespoke social prescriptions for the biggest killer diseases, but we were changing the interaction between the healthcare professional, the patient and the provider of the lifestyle intervention.”

Elemental Software is certainly making a name for itself in the start up world, having just been announced as one of the Top 20 companies in Northern Ireland to receive funding from Invest Northern Ireland’s Propel Programme.

In December, 2015 the company were 4th place winners in Ro’Ya - selected from over 100 female start up entrepreneurs across the United Arab Emirates. Recently the team also published the results of an external evaluation carried out by Ulster University proving that their unique digital signposting and tracking system, combined with standard psycho-education, significantly reduced the risk of Type 2 Diabetes.