Sir Stelios presents Hannah Chamberlain with her £30,000 cheque
THE woman who created a new app that helps people with mental health issues has won the prestigious £30,000 Stelios Award for Disabled Entrepreneurs.
Hannah Chamberlain is the founder of MentalSnapp (www.mentalsnapp.com), a video diary app that helps people proactively manage their mental health.
Users can record short video diaries, rate their mood and name their feelings.
Hannah, who is planning to launch an updated version of her app in the New Year, said: “I am overjoyed. We’ll take this money and use it for good.
“Being the overall winner means we can make MentalSnapp even better – we’ve got plans for intelligent responses to the videos, tailored to what our users want, all designed to help people actively and confidently manage their mental health with private video diaries.”
easyJet founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou chose Hannah as the overall winner. He said: “For far too long mental health issues have been virtually ignored and swept under the carpet.
“I think this app has excellent growth prospects.”
Neil Heslop, chief executive of Leonard Cheshire Disability, which helped run the awards, said: “Sir Stelios and Leonard Cheshire Disability know the contribution of disabled people in business is too often ignored so we are delighted that this year’s finalists again shine a light on the fantastic calibre of untapped talent out there.
“We hope this year’s Stelios Awards inspire ever more disabled people to become entrepreneurs.”
The four other business ideas showcased at the awards ceremony were a wheelchair review website, an accessible specialist online job board, a ceramic home-ware company, and a mobile toilet and changing facility for disabled people. All business owners received home £10,000.