Country: Finland

Category: Social

Name: Heimo

Project Aim:  Safe online community for life challenges.

Why these idea come to you?

There are billions of stories that are never told. Stories that are too hard to tell or there is no-one who would listen or understand. Shame and stigma are huge problems causing mental health issues: 30% of the population worldwide will have some form of mental disorder at some point of their life. 66% of those people receive no treatment.

How does it work?

Heimo is the anonymous & safe online community for life challenges. We use crowdsourcing and peer-to-peer model to solve the problem of mental health issues by allowing ordinary people to get support and help each others emotionally without shame.  Whats is unique about Heimo, is that we addresses problems that some other social networks have created such as loneliness, feeling of unworthy, depression or cyberbullying.  Heimo is anonymous, non-harassment and safe platform, where emotional help is just one click away.

When is the company now?

We have been piloting Heimo in Europe and Asia with 100.000 users; most active users come from South East Asia: especially from Philippines.

As one of the national winners of the Startup Europe Awards, it means for us that our hard work to help others has been noticed. It gives energy to continue and make the change happen!