Mohali: Talking mental health with ISB's first startup

By: Swati Bhan

CHANDIGARH: Discussing mental health is no longer a taboo but it is a problem that is now being realized especially amongst youngsters. And unlike earlier when there was no help available to take note there are now options and a similar initiative is being taken up by Abhay Singhal a recent pass out from Indian School of Business ( ISB ) Mohali .

Singhal's attempt is to ensure that mental health is advocated and people get to talk about it and discuss it without inhibitions. His startup will be the first one of the Atal Incubation Centre, (AIC) an acceleration arm of ISB which was launched at the Mohali campus on Thursday. AIC is set up in partnership with Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog to nurture innovative start-ups by guiding them to become scalable and sustainable enterprises.

His startup Tick Talkto is an attempt to help those suffering from mental health but are not able to reach out to the right medical experts to discuss their exact problem.

Speaking about the start-up Singhal said, "We have had a soft launch earlier as we had got some insights from Dlabs the incubation centre at ISB Hyderabad," said Singhal. He said that at Mohali campus they would be the first to set up the start-up.

"Chandigarh has some of the best psychiatrists in the country who can be reached out without any hesitation and our platform is one such tele-talk platform that will be helping out people suffering from this issue," said Singhal. He added that this platform will be able to connect to the best of those dealing with mental health.

The AIC at ISB meanwhile will host a state-of-the-art incubation space for entrepreneur to interact, engage and collaborate with mentors, investors and academia. The incubator is now accepting applications for the first startup incubation programme for the current year.

This incubation is open to all but preference will be given to startups from sectors like, infrastructure, manufacturing, healthcare, agriculture and food tech and new ventures in family business.

The AIC at ISB was launched in the presence of Vini Mahajan from Niti Aayog.