Digital Mental Health | OTRFSep2025
Wellbeing Champion Festival Series | AIM x OTR x EveryChild.SG x Praxium x Remarkable Women Asia x SPEAK x Think Kids
Wellbeing Champion Festival Series is a wellness initiative in celebration of World Mental Health Month comprising multiple workshops and webinars, each hosted on separate event pages.
To participate, please register individually for each session. Some events are co-hosted with our partner, Over-The-Rainbow (OTR) and by clicking on the respective link, you will be brought to another site.
This World Mental Health Day let’s come together to prioritise what truly matters — our mental wellbeing.
Join us as we celebrate self-care, connection, and emotional resilience. In the lead-up to the day, we're bringing back our most popular workshops throughout September and October, offered in a variety of formats and platforms to suit your needs.
Whether you're looking to reconnect with yourself, engage meaningfully with others, or simply take a much-needed pause — there’s something here for you.
Event Details
Date: Friday, 10 October 2025
Time: 12:30pm - 2:00pm
Mode: Online via Zoom
Synopsis
Mental health is a clear and urgent modern-day issue — it is the next major epidemic.
In a 2023 Ipsos survey:
More than half (55%) of Singaporeans say that they have felt stressed to the point where it had an impact on how they lived their daily lives at least once in the past year, with about a quarter of Singaporeans (24%) saying it has happened several times. Around the same (23%) number of people also say that, on several occasions in the last 12 months, they felt so stressed that they could not cope or deal with things. Thirty-nine percent say they had to take time off work due to stress in the last year, with 15% saying they had to do this on multiple occasions.
Close to half of Singaporeans (49%) reported feeling depressed to the point that they felt sad or hopeless almost every day for weeks at a time. 20% say they have felt this way on multiple occasions in the past year.
27% have seriously considered suicide or self-hurt at least once in the past year. 26% of those under 35 have considered it once; and 10% of Singaporeans say they have considered it several times in the past year.
For many, life increasingly feels like a treadmill that they can’t get off, while others experience a growing sense of loneliness, isolation and disconnect despite living in an age of digital super-connectivity.
Globally, approximately one in four people are expected to experience a mental health condition in their lifetime. This widespread need fuels the demand for accessible solutions. Digital mental health (DMH) interventions help overcome traditional barriers to care, such as stigma, geographical limitations, time constraints, and cost. They offer a more convenient private, and often more affordable alternative.
Digital mental health (DMH) has been a rapidly growing field with increasing prevalence and adoption driven by the rising global burden of mental disorders, technological advancements, and the push for more accessible and affordable care. In the US, the percentage of adults reporting serious psychological distress who used a digital health tool for mental health has grown substantially, from 10% in 2013 to 40% in 2024. Telemedicine has become increasingly entrenched in healthcare delivery many preferring telemedicine over in-person care for mental health support. AI is now playing a pivotal role in the development of chatbots and virtual assistants that provide therapy and support. AI and predictive analytics are also being used to uncover behavioral patterns and predict mental health progression. Virtual Reality (VR) is another emerging technology showing promise in mental health care. Meanwhile, wearable devices are becoming quite common in passive data collection (digital phenotyping) to monitor mood or anxiety shifts.
DMH holds immense promise for expanding access to mental health support and transforming care delivery. Despite its potential, DMH faces several challenges including the digital divide, privacy and security, regulations, user engagement and sustainability, and the need for therapeutic alliance. Realizing its full potential requires addressing the technical, ethical, and clinical challenges to ensure equitable access, high-quality interventions, and patient safety.
Dr. Bechara Saab
Founding CEO of Mobio Interactive
As the CEO of Mobio Interactive (MI), Dr. Saab works with his team to build digital tools that empower better living and faster healing. Until 2017, he was a Principal Investigator of the Zurich Neuroscience Centre where his laboratory at the Psychiatry Hospital focused on understanding molecules and neural circuits that give rise to the motivation to explore.
He discovered a molecular link between environmental exploration and spatial learning, and in doing so observed an active role for the hippocampus in motivational behaviour. These results were recently extended by the lab and the labs of others to reveal roles of cortical and subcortical inputs to the hippocampus in novelty-driven exploration, research made possible by recent advancements in optogenetics in the freely behaving animal in combination with wireless electrophysiology, PET and fMRI. Together, this avenue of research has shed light on the mechanisms underscoring the intimate relationships between exploration, efficient learning and cognitive disease.
At the circuit level, the importance of curiosity for healthy living is the inspiration for the therapies delivered to patients via the digital therapeutics platform AmDTx. He has dedicated his career to science outreach and mentorship. He firmly believes that face-to-face interaction between researchers and students stands to benefit society on many levels.
He was instrumental in establishing the Mount Sinai Hospital Outreach Program SciHigh, was Editor-in-Chief of Hypothesis, received the inaugural CIHR Award for Mentorship, represented Switzerland at Famelab 2012 and have been an invited as an speaker seven times to the world's longest-running Science Documentary Film Festival, AFO in the Czech Republic. He is an Overseas Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, a member of the Swiss Stress Network, an Associate Editor for Frontiers in Psychology, and a Canadian nominee to the World Economic Forum as a Future World Leader.
Clara Chen
Founder & CEO of Universal Health | Founding Partner of Singapore Deep-Tech Alliance (SDTA)
Clara is a serial entrepreneur who has spent two decades influencing change through media, technology, and investment. She is deeply committed to fostering solutions that uplift communities, and her current entrepreneurship endeavours are focused on two key areas:
A non-profit leveraging catalytic capital to uplift communities through innovation; and
A population health company integrating science into daily routines to eradicate mental illnesses and end today’s separate but unequal approaches for mental and physical health.
As a caregiver for a parent with schizophrenia and survivor of suicide loss as a child, Clara is driven by a belief in social impact to create a better life for our population and has:
Leveraged technology and media to create a new income stream for hundreds of thousands of platform workers;
Created hundreds of jobs and communities with hundreds of thousands of members across 17 time zones;
Represented a MAS-licensed fund manager and using financing vehicles to impact lives;
Lectured in due diligence (venture capital) to help investors and entrepreneurs pay attention to what matters;
Volunteered in healthcare and education institutions to serve disadvantaged communities; and
Deliberately sought a broad and multidisciplinary education — Law, Venture Finance, Marketing, and an Executive MBA — to build and drive organisations that address complex societal challenges forward.
Jasper Lim
Manager of Care Corner Singapore
Jasper Lim is the Manager of INSIGHT, Care Corner's youth mental health team, with over a decade of experience working with at-risk youth and their families. His team is dedicated to mental health education, outreach, and intervention services. Jasper was part of the team that developed Carey, Care Corner's mental health platform, which has attracted over 23,000 site visitors and successfully connected more than 1,000 youths to their first mental health support appointment. In addition, he led the collaboration with TikTok under the Youth for Good initiative, a programme aimed at raising awareness of mental well-being and cyber wellness among Singaporean youth. Supported by MCCY, MOE, NYC, and IMDA, this initiative has reached over 10,000 youths and provided intervention services to more than 500 during the pandemic. Jasper is passionate about empowering youth and their families to build resilience and continues to drive best practices in youth mental health.
Jeff Lee
Founder & CEO of Zoala
Jeff Lee is a seasoned problem solver in the IT&T industry with over two decades of experience, cultivating a career enriched by diverse experiences across multiple countries. Armed with a Bachelor's degree in Computing, he commenced his journey as an application developer, swiftly advancing to pivotal roles in addressing industry challenges. Starting in Malaysia, he honed his problem-solving skills before extending his influence to Hong Kong and Australia.
Jeff's entrepreneurial journey has been characterised by a range of experiences. His successful ventures in Australia and Malaysia served as catalysts for his passion and support for his current venture, Zoala. Zoala embodies his unwavering commitment to leveraging technology for societal betterment, particularly focusing on adolescent mental wellness. Jeff's multifaceted experience, combined with his academic achievements, serves as an ongoing source of inspiration to those around him.
Jeff holds an Executive MBA from NUS Business School and is currently pursuing a Master's degree in Psychology. As he navigates the dynamic landscape in Singapore, his extensive industry experience continues to fuel his pursuit of innovative solutions.
Renee Chong
Educator-Turned-Entrepreneur | Transforming Mental Health Support with AI
Renee is a seasoned educator, policy maker, and entrepreneur with over 16 years of experience in Singapore's education sector. She has excelled in various leadership roles within the Ministry of Education, including Lead Manager in the Higher Education Policy Division and Head of Department for Integrated Curriculum in Junior College. Renee's expertise lies in developing innovative curricula and educational policies that align with the evolving needs of the education sector and the future of Singapore.
As the co-founder of MangaChat, CEO of Emmet Insight, and CEO of the Entrepreneur Leadership Institute, Renee continues to drive educational innovation and mental wellness. MangaChat leverages art and gamification to foster students' journaling habits and emotional expression. Emmet Insight focuses on educational research and analytics, providing valuable insights to enhance learning outcomes. The Entrepreneur Leadership Institute, under her guidance, empowers aspiring entrepreneurs to materialize their business ideas through practical training programs, mentorship, networking opportunities, venture building, and pitching to potential investors.
Renee's exceptional leadership and management skills have enabled her to collaborate with diverse stakeholders, including industry partners, educators, parents, and students, both locally and internationally. Her strategic vision and ability to align curriculum and policy with the dynamic demands of the education landscape have significantly contributed to creating a more competitive and holistic educational environment.
Wendy Wu
Founder & Chairman of Wonder Tech
Wendy Wu is the founder and Chairman of Wonder Tech, a Singapore-based Voice AI company pioneering vocal biomarker technology for mental health. Under her leadership, Wonder Tech has developed a clinically validated platform capable of detecting mental health conditions using voice alone, with over 1.8 billion vocal biomarkers and 83% sensitivity in depression screening.
With a background in Emotional Intelligence, Psychometrics, and AI, Wendy has led the company to empower over 1 million individuals through early, objective, and privacy-protective digital screening. She is also the founding researcher of EmotionNet, co-author of To Feel, or Not to Feel?, and has collaborated with Harvard Business Review on emotional wellbeing studies.
Yen-Lu Chow
Co-founder and Executive Chairman of WholeTree Limited and its mental wellness initiative Over-The-Rainbow (OTR) | Founding Executive Chairman of Asia Institute of Mentoring (AIM) | Founding Partner Fatfish MediaLab | Founding Executive Mentor of Young Sustainable Impact Southeast Asia (YSI SEA) | Founder of the Deep Human Movement
Yen-Lu Chow is an award-winning entrepreneur, technologist, venture catalyst & angel investor, mentor & advisor turned author & keynote speaker, mental wellbeing champion, social innovator, philanthropist & humanist, student of spirituality & seeker of Truth.
He sits at the nexus of three major social ecosystems: mental health, mentoring and sustainability, bringing extensive experience in tech and entrepreneurship to build ecosystems and mobilize communities to create positive social change. In a fast-paced world where the only constant is change, he believes there is an urgent need for each of us to draw on our strengths and creative potential as human beings to contribute towards humanity in a positive and impactful way. He enjoys building ecosystems and mobilizing the community to create positive social change. With the launch of his family foundation and other social impact initiatives, Yen-Lu devotes his time serving both society and the nation in his various capacities.
And with Deep Human, he wants to make ancient wisdom available and accessible to modern life - a way of being that connects us back to the Source and brings us closer to the Humanity that we aspire (and need) to be - to a time and place where our planet was not merely seen as free resources to be exploited for selfish gains and endless human greed, without consideration for the greater good – where conscious consumption replaces hyper consumption – where collective consciousness replaces individual thinking – where we live as one, in harmony and in unity with our environment, our planet and with one another.
He is on a life mission to help bring about a kinder, gentler, more inclusive, more just, and sustainable world.
Check out the other workshops and webinars we've in line for you:
