GAME ON! CAMH Education’s MiChecker pitch wins at GameON Ventures 2016

Over the past three months, Brennan Sarich and Dana-Lea Thompson from CAMH Education have been working on an idea for developmental disabilities using apps, games and wearable technology. With help from the CAMH Education Digital Innovation and Online Learning team, they wanted to create something fun and engaging that could make a difference in health outcomes for children and youth with DD. They connected with Dr. Yona Lunsky at CAMH, who provided clinical expertise and support for the project.

The solution the team came up with, in collaboration with youth and adults with developmental disabilities, as well as families and staff, is MiChecker—the digital pet that turns routines into games for children and youth with developmental disabilities! You can watch the concept video below!

The CAMH Education team entered the video and an executive summary proposal to the GameON Ventures pitch competition, where participants had a chance to pitch to investors their game idea or platform to a panel of judges. The pitch competition received over 800 international submissions. Of those, 20 organizations were selected to take part in an intensive pitching workshop on Day 1 of the conference. After pitching privately to an initial jury of investors and publishers, four finalists were chosen to pitch in front of all conference delegates and a second jury on Day 2, including MiChecker.

“We have really enjoyed working on a concept around circles of care and supporting youth with developmental disabilities,” says Brennan Sarich, Digital Producer. “We plan to partner with community organizations, families, staff and youth with developmental disabilities as we begin creating MiChecker for children and youth with DD. We hope to have an early build of the app that we can test with audiences in the coming year.”

Want to know more about health care and developmental disabilities?  Check out www.hcardd.ca.