Lifehack HQ Blog

Catalysing innovation for the wellbeing of young Kiwis

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Lifehack Labs Begins....

Today we're launching Lifehack Labs into the world.

We're welcoming twenty of the brightest young people from around the country join us in Wellington today to begin Lifehack Labs. It’ll be five weeks of intensive learning, research, mentoring, coaching and prototyping of technology projects, but really it is just the start of the journey for many of them.

The Labs experience brings together a range of disciplines such as design, entrepreneurship, social innovation, and technology and runs from 15 August until 19 September. This social lab is the first of its kind in New Zealand which aims to improve the wellbeing of young New Zealanders through technology and entrepreneurship. Unlike an accelerator programme, applicants enter Labs as individuals, and form teams and ventures around ideas during the lab with a specific social focus.

We’re helping people build resilient teams who are able and willing to take these technology ideas to scale, and impact the lives of thousands of Kiwis. We’re excited to be kicking off the Lab and supporting the next wave of leaders working on youth wellbeing in the digital age through rapidly advancing technology and social media.

With around 40% of the Kiwi population likely to experience depression in their lives, and New Zealand experiencing some of the lowest youth wellbeing rankings in the OECD, we need more skilled people actively working on the biggest problems in our society using a range of toolkits to help them develop new ideas and build on what’s already working around the country.

Lifehack partnered with Trade Me to run the Lab in their iconic space on Market Lane in Wellington. Lifehack is also working with organisations like entrepreneur hub SODA Inc from Hamilton, Queensland University of Technology, and social enterprise network Enspiral.  Labs has attracted mentors from academia, the corporate sector, not-for-profits and the blossoming social enterprise scene in Wellington.

Lifehack is part of the Prime Minister’s Youth Mental Health Project, which also funded projects like Common Ground and SPARX.  

We'll be posting regular updates here on our blog and also on social media, so join us on Facebook and Twitter.

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Announcing Lifehack Labs Space Partner - Trade Me!

Today we’re delighted to announce a new partnership with Trade Me!

We’ve been eager to announce the venue for Lifehack Labs 2014, as we think it’s one of the coolest darn spaces in the whole of Wellington.

From mid August we’ll be taking over Trade Me’s old space in Market Lane (opposite St John’s Bar) - yes, that’s the one with a slide in it.

It’s also got a fantastic layout for the kind of high intensity collaborative experience we’ll be running in August & September with 20 bright minds from around Aotearoa. Lifehack Labs is a 5 week design-led bootcamp to kickstart impact projects for youth wellbeing.

Trade Me really came to the party to support Lifehack Labs to happen - it’s great to be working with one of NZ’s leading businesses which is using technology to enable new ways of doing things. Many of you will know the Trade Me story, so you’ll know that they began as a small gem of an idea, made it through the startup days, and 15 years on they’ve enabled thousands of trades between Kiwis and kept a focus on supporting the NZ community.

When we asked Trade Me why they decided to support Lifehack Labs, they told us “We thought this was a cool way to help out an interesting and inspirational tech-focused initiative literally next door to us.”

   We’re counting down to the beginning of Lifehack Labs on 15 August, and we’ll be back with more news from behind the scenes soon. Stay tuned!

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Have an idea for a Wellbeing venture or project? Learn from the best....

Do you have a burning desire to turn one of those ideas in the back of your brain into a working app and start your own business?

Sometimes you need a little help - we get that. We're soon to be running Lifehack Labs for 20 bright minds from around the country to help them go deep into the problems we face as a nation, generate tools and solutions, and prototype them to bring them to life.

Not everyone can take 5 weeks out of their life, so we've teamed up with the world-class Startup Scientists & Coaches at Pollenizer in Australia to make their 60 Day Online Course available to our Lifehack Community.

This course is perfect to help you take an idea from inception to confidence in sixty days so you can decide what to do next. Quit your job, find a co-founder, start speaking to investors, or go back to work on your next big idea.

Features:

Developing strong ideas

Develop hypotheses

Testing your idea manually

Learning to Pivot an idea

Developing an MVP

Identifying Metrics that matter

Finding a co-founder

Working out what next

It's a complete kit set to help you get your startup off the ground with great advice and support along the way from 3 kickass coaches.

Want to take the plunge?

We've negotiated you a 10% discount, so just use the code "lifehack10" and you'll be heading in the right direction with your startup in no time! They even offer you a money back guarantee - what good folks :)

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So many great initiatives in the Far North

When researching potential projects for our recent Northland event in June, I (Gina) was blown away by the suggestions that came from across Te Tai Tokerau.

From suicide prevention to problem gambling – projects across the entire spectrum were brought to our attention. And whilst they may point out some of the troubles that the Northland people (and people across New Zealand) are having to deal with, it brings to life the care and thoughtfulness by the passionate people behind these projects that gives me hope.

I wanted to take this opportunity to highlight all the projects that I encountered on my research travels, and am hoping that by writing about them, we can spread the word about these amazing projects and initiatives. I can only encourage anyone to give these projects a hand.

I’m Local - A project that aims to help rural and queer youth feel valued, recognised and supported by their local communities

    RAID - Ngati Hine Health Trust’s amazing Facebook-based suicide prevention initiative

Photo Voice - a gambling addiction initiative run by Nga Manga Puriri (Northland Problem Gambling Service Provider) that uses photos to get recovering addicts to document their journey to recovery

Matanui - the Northland DHB’s theatre-in-education workshops that work towards educating young people how to access the right public services

Kaikohe Youth Action Plan - a collaborative project seeking to deliver youth-related services on a local level.

The Children’s Rights Game - a project by Whangarei’s Child and Youth Friendly Whangarei Coordinator Hannah Mitchell which aims to bring to life children’s rights at a local level.

And finally  the four projects we ended up working with over the weekend

Te Ao Oro Toi - teaching young people the art of expression through music and song-writing

HYPE Kaikohe - providing a safe environment for young people in the Mid-North

Project Opportunity - an initiative borne out of the Northland Youth Summit which seeks to provide an environment for young people to learn new skills to work out their career path.  

Engage Aoteroa and The Butterfly Diaries - the provider-agnostic resource for mental health-related advice, as well as suicide survivor stories

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Wanted: Storytelling Intern

Our epic Lifehack Labs project is just around the corner. We have selected the participants, we are finalising the venue and the programme. Individuals from across the country will be joining us in Wellington over a five-week period to tackle some of the hardest problems of our generation. They'll forming teams, validating hypotheses, launching social ventures.

We'll have one hell of a story to tell. And we need a helping hand doing that. 

Lifehack is looking for a part-time intern to join us on the Lifehack Labs journey to produce creative content for a range of media: blog posts, social media items, photography, and moving image. You'll have a nick for writing, a keen eye for spotting a great story unfolding before you, and ideally a skilled hand when it comes to a camera (and the editing software). 

We are looking for someone happy to become part of a friendly, hard-working and tight-knit team. You'll be given a high level of autonomy, and paid for your time. Hours and place of work are to be arranged – there'll be key events where we'll need you, but otherwise we're very flexible. 

A full role description can be found here. Please apply by 30 July, or spread the word in case this sounds like one of your friends.

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Meet the Team: Gina

Even though I’m Berlin-born, I spent most of working life in London, and at organisations and highly commercial companies promoting best-practice work out of the worlds of design, advertising and technology.

I did a variety of jobs – from event production and sponsorship work at design and advertising not-for-profit D&AD to researching and consulting on brands' strategic direction at Contagious. Working as a journalist and consultant at the latter has taught me rigour and conciseness, and sharpened my mind when it came to well argued decision making. Both jobs offered exposure to a vast variety of work from various industries, and a network of contacts in agencies and brands that spans all continents.

During my London days, I volunteered for the fine folk at The Do Lectures, which led to a close involvement with the team behind the social enterprise hack-weekend crew Good For Nothing. A refuge for a corporate pirates, good-hearted developers and generally top humans, it's a community in the truest sense, working towards using their brains and skills for good (and free) on top of their day jobs. An eclectic mix of designers, developers, marketers and strategics, the crew came together regularly to help worthy causes or meet for a drink in one of London's many pubs.

Some of my most poignant work-defining conversations came out encounters with this crowd. It became a group of mentors, like-minded souls and friends at the same time. Connecting to like-minded souls is so important. There's not much worse than feeling like you're alone with your approach and thinking and view of the world. Hitting upon that group of people who share your views and work towards a common goal is gold. It puts every-day (and commercial) life into perspective. And seeing how, one by one, members of that community dropped their commercial day jobs for work with social enterprises, NGO's or their own passion projects was inspiring and crucial to seeing what alternatives are possible in this highly commercial world.

One of my main worries returning to charming but little Wellington was that I'd spend a long time searching for those like-minded souls and amazing humans. However, I quickly came across the Enspiral crowd, who share the values of the Good For Nothing community I so dearly appreciated. Producing significant work with social impact is what guides every at Enspiral. Lifehack is only one of the outputs that Enspiral is involved in. With our broader inquiry into wellbeing and technology, we spend many of our days pondering how we increase the bonds between people, and work towards developing a strategy for a generation of young people (and everyone else, really) to feel more well and not walk away from the hard questions.

Having started work on Lifehack back in February, the significance of the work quickly became apparent to me. After having run our weekend workshops across the country I am now keen to delve into the future planning for Lifehack. Seeing how much further we can extend the impact of this mahi, with our approach that works to deeply embed wellbeing into everything we do.

And for all the people wondering how to get more meaningful work into their lives: I wouldn't be doing what I do today without having volunteered in something I felt passionate about on top of my day job. Spending time on what feels important will lead to future opportunities that might currently be impossible to grasp. I can only encourage everyone who feels like they might not be in the right place right now to carefully test the waters (or jump in the deep end, of course) in ways that suit – whether that's volunteering, starting your own venture on top of your day job, doing an internship or finding work with purpose.

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Inside the Minds of Lifehack Lab Mentors

Following my previous blog post, Outside the Square of Lifehack HQ, I asked three out of twenty different Lab mentors five questions regarding Lifehack Labs 2014 and their view on improving society within New Zealand.

The Lab will be a five week creative workshop to tackle difficult projects for youth wellbeing. The main objective is to improve society in New Zealand. Labs will take place in Wellington between August 15th and September 19th this year.

The following questions are designed to inform interested people about the background of Lifehack Lab mentors and their career goal to help improve New Zealand society. The answers below will tell the story of who these Lab mentors are, interested people for attending future Labs, and the current participants attending Labs.

Here’s what the Lab mentors had to say:

Jackson Wood:

- Senior Communications Advisor at New Zealand Drug Foundation.

1. Why did you choose to become a Lab mentor?

“Lifehack Labs is shaping up to be a great programme. I wanted to share in that and also share my skills with, and learn from, young people looking to change the world.”

2. What type of specialised skill(s) will you bring to Labs?

“I come from a communications, behaviour change, drug policy, public health, background. So working out the best thing to say to people and the best way to say it about thorny issues.”

3. What are your future career goals to help improve society and/or youth wellbeing?

“I would really like to work toward a New Zealand where there are multi-faceted services around young people that help them when they need it, and be accessible to a wide range of needs. Whether that is an application, or a drop in centre, there need to be solutions in the places where young people look for them.”

4. If you could work on one complex challenge in society within New Zealand what would it be?

“Child poverty. So much stems from the early years of life - it sets the track people go down in terms of mental and physical health and wellbeing, but also in terms of their ability to live a fulfilling life. Many social, health, and mental health problems stem from our unequal society. Let's address that and change things.”

5. What advice would you give an individual who is accepted for Lifehack Labs?

“Use this opportunity wisely. Collaborate and work together with people to make your ideas better because all the ideas that come out of Labs will make NZ a better place.”

Silvia Zuur:

- CEO and Founder of Chalkle.

1. Why did you choose to become a Lab mentor?

“I love it that the lab focuses on people first and foremost I have witnessed Lifehack over the last year, I think it has come on a great journey and I am excited to be a part of its next step.”

2. What type of specialised skill(s) will you bring to Labs?

“Help the participants ask why, facilitation skills, experience and advice on running a tech social impact start-up, and time and space to have cups of coffee.”

3. What are your future career goals to help improve society and/or youth wellbeing?

“Create more lifelong learning opportunities for all people and enable our communities to connect online - but then meet and learn offline.”

4. If you could work on one complex challenge in society within New Zealand what would it be?

“Education.”

5. What advice would you give an individual who is accepted for Lifehack Labs?

“Don't focus too much on the details. Keep your head up, your heart open, and your will engaged. Say yes to every opportunity.”

Rohan Wakefield:

- Co-founder at Enspiral Dev Academy and Consultant/BDM at Enspiral.

1. Why did you choose to become a Lab mentor?

“I love Chels, Sam, Gina and the wider Lifehack team. The vision for Lifehack is uplifting, worthy and rewarding. Working with passionate people to better our society is one of the best things to do with your time. I am sure I will learn a lot!”

2. What type of specialised skill(s) will you bring to Labs?

“I have experience in developing how people work. Growing an individual’s skills and capabilities through self-reflection and development to improve their interaction with others. I find it easy to be vulnerable and I encourage others to do the same in a safe environment.”

3. What are your future career goals to help improve society and/or youth wellbeing?

“Through my work with Enspiral Dev Academy, I hope to be able to increase the capabilities of our students so that they are known for their good judgement, empathy and kindness. I hope to be able to influence our education system to include curriculum that builds a person rather than a resource.”

4. If you could work on one complex challenge in society within New Zealand what would it be?

“Overhauling our education system to accommodate a more diverse group. Right now our education system focuses on knowledge gathering and retention. I would like it to focus more on capabilities and skills.”

5. What advice would you give an individual who is accepted for Lifehack Labs?

“Think about what aspect of yourself that you would like to improve. This is a safe place to be yourself. Be open to change, be open to other views, be venerable and be kind.”

These three Lab mentors have different skillsets and will be valuable for Labs and they care a lot about the New Zealand society. The other Lab mentors who have not been interviewed will also be providing valuable dialogue and feedback for Lab participants.

It has been an awesome experience interviewing these talented Lab mentors and I wish the chosen Lab participants the best of luck for Labs 2014.

Lance Young, Lifehack Extern.

LIFEHACK HQ - Catalysing impact projects for youth wellbeing through technology & social entrepreneurship.

NZ’s first Social Innovation Lab - a five week immersion bootcamp to develop technology projects to improve youth wellbeing! Spread the word!

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Outside the Square of Lifehack HQ

Born into the Chinese third generation in New Zealand, I chose my own career path. As a Wellingtonian with a keen interest in business and start-ups, I decided to hone in on marketing and entrepreneurship at Massey University. The business degree that I am working towards will help ensure a strong foundation for myself which will open many doors into the marketing world.

As a young enthusiastic individual requiring relevant work experience towards completing my business degree, a local organisation was chosen for my three month university work experience.

Lifehack has provided valuable insight into the social enterprise sector of marketing and entrepreneurship; surrounding their innovative perspective to tackle difficult projects and provide solutions for youth wellbeing in New Zealand. Before studying entrepreneurship and gaining experience at Lifehack, I did not have enough knowledge about social entrepreneurship/social innovation. The time at Lifehack has provided me with specialised knowledge in areas, such as marketing promotion and different types of social media platforms, which will be helpful for future social enterprise careers in marketing.

The two most interesting things that I have learnt at Lifehack are: (1) their relaxed working environment and (2) the amount of time the Lifehack co-ordinators must spend outside the office. When I first arrived at the Lifehack headquarters the first thing that came to mind was how calm, relaxed, and approachable the employees are. There are other small social enterprise companies in the same workspace as Lifehack, such as the Enspiral Network and Dev Academy. Sam Rye and Chelsea Robinson (Lifehack co-ordinators) must frequently leave the office to help run and promote Lifehack events across the country, such as the recent Kaitaia and Invercargill events.

The most challenging task that I have completed at Lifehack was to create a concise, detailed marketing plan for Lifehack Labs. The marketing plan was to outline Lifehack Labs current position in the marketplace, recommend ways to help promote themselves, and increase the sign-up rate from their target audience before applications close on the 29 June. The marketing plan was time consuming, but the satisfaction on completion was an awesome experience.

My view on society has expanded positively in terms of providing solutions to difficult problems, such as Lifehack utilising technology to provide digital mobile applications to improve youth wellbeing in New Zealand. Marketing is not always about making money and mass advertising for one’s personal business gain in terms of wealth. Lifehack has taught me that marketing can be used for social good to help advertise and promote not-for-profit organisations, such as Lifehack Labs, which main objective is to help improve society and youth wellbeing.

Throughout these three months of researching information related to social change/entrepreneurship/innovation, understanding the lean comms canvas, and writing interesting marketing content related to Lifehack Labs, I have learnt a variety of valuable information which has helped expand my marketing and social enterprise knowledge.

The Lifehack work experience through Massey University has been beneficial and credible for future job prospects in the marketing world.

Lance Young, Lifehack Extern.

LIFEHACK HQ - Catalysing impact projects for youth wellbeing through technology & social entrepreneurship.

NZ's first Social Innovation Lab - a five week immersion bootcamp to develop technology projects to improve youth wellbeing! Spread the word!

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LIFEHACK Northland - Fun in the Far North!

A couple of weekends ago we had our first experience running a residential hui – all of a sudden we spend not just two very intense days with the Lifehack participants, but evenings and nights as well. Paired with a couple of intense workout sessions (Zumba and BoxFit), along with children running amidst the people working on behalf of community projects, it's safe to say that Lifehack Kaitaia was one of a kind in 2014.

Wonderfully courageous project holders made their projects available for us to work on. Traveling from as far as Auckland & Wellington, both participants and project holders showed determination and community spirit. From suicide prevention and mental health resources to creative arts, we had a range of proactive and reactive initiatives when it comes to our young people’s wellbeing.

Seeing the way the rangatahi of the Far North have a gift for the creative and technical gab was astonishing. From writing waiatas in a single afternoon, to seeing fully edited movies come to to life after just a day's experience in iMovie was truly inspirational, and demonstrates the determination and tutu (hands-on) attitude that was so all-encompassing.

John Carter, the local mayor joined us for Sunday presentations. Refreshingly down-to-earth, John talked about the importance of culture, and how important it is to keep it alive and see Maori and Pakeha work alongside one another to achieve the best for the country and its people. In a short speech, John talked about his responsibility of representing the people of the Far North, and in an unexpected move supplied his business card to project holders with the advice to give him a call should they get stuck when it comes to their project.

In no particular order, here are some things that were created over the weekend:

- A business plan and a stakeholder map for Project Opportunity, along with a media contact sheet

- User personas, a rails app, and physical prototypes for a 'Coping Kete' for Engage Aotearoa

- A new project name, movie, business plan, logo and vision for Te Ao Oro Toi

- A marketing strategy, engagement plan, user survey, video and stakeholder map for H.Y.P.E.

Check out the photos from the weekend here:

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Post by Lifehack HQ.

You can also see our short photo journal here.

When I first came to visit Northland a couple of months ago, one of the youth workers told to us about the 'systematic lack of hope' that affected young people in the region. Having witnessed this weekend of determination, hard work, creative energy and strong community spirit, I am looking forward to seeing this attitude shift towards the positive. Please help us spread the word about these amazing causes.

Special thanks to Te Kura Kaupapa Maori o Pukemiro in Kaitaia for hosting us, and Te Hiku Media for filming the event.

Post by Gina Rembe, LIFEHACK Event Coordinator

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It's the last week to get your applications in for #LifehackLabs!

Do something special this winter, and set yourself up to turn challenges into opportunities for the rest of your life.

Apply now at LIFEHACK Labs

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New Zealand Well-Being 2.0

This is a guest blog by Carsten Grimm, mental health promoter.

  “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.” - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

We need a more sophisticated conversation about well-being here in New Zealand and an aspirational vision that teaches us all to yearn for a nation of people who are thriving. A mentally healthy population that flourishes—where the majority of people feel good and function well—will be the resource that tackles our social issues, our most precious resource, and a resource whose cultivation, quite frankly, is far too important to be left up to chance.

Mental wellness and mental illness: The double-continuum model of well-being

With the exponential increase in popularity of the positive psychology movement we have seen an explosion of research into well-being, which has started to balance out the historical legacy of psychology to focus mainly on what is wrong with you. We are now seeing increasingly sophisticated ways to measure what is right with you, including how to catalogue, scientifically, your character strengths, values, orientations to happiness, and the constellation of symptoms that make up positive functioning and flourishing (take some of these scientifically validated inventories at the University of Pennsylvania’s Authentic Happiness test centre).

With this research effort we understand better how good mental health (well-being) and poor mental health (mental illness) intersect with one another. We appreciate now that the absence of mental illness does not automatically confer ‘wellness’—being mentally healthy is something over and above just the absence of illness and it takes somewhat different toolboxes to alleviate illness and to promote well-being. For example, a combined drugs and therapy approach has been shown to be (somewhat) successful in ameliorating depression and anxiety, whereas the Five Ways to Well-being have been shown to be an accessible approach for everyone, regardless of resources, to improve their general well-being (Aked, Marks, Cordon, & Thompson, 2009).

So how are we doing?

Looking within New Zealand we find that mental illness is just far too common: 46.6% of the population are predicted to meet criteria for a disorder at some time in their lives, with 20.7% of the population having had experience of a mental illness within the last 12 months (Oakley Browne, Wells, & Scott, 2006). Using the data from the Sovereign Well-being Index the latest research on well-being in New Zealand assess that flourishing in the population is at 24% (Hone, Jarden, Schofield, & Duncan, 2014). Roughly comparable using this research, flourishing in Denmark is at 41%.

Looking to general global comparisons of how we are doing sees the Scandinavian countries consistently at the top of the happiest countries list and New Zealand consistently below the leader-pack. When using life satisfaction New Zealand places overall behind the Scandinavian countries, Australia, Mexico, and Canada (OECD, 12th Better Life Index). Using a well-being composite, the 2013 UN World Happiness Report places New Zealand 13th Sachs, 2013). When examining social well-being, however—feeling close to and valued by other people— New Zealand’s international standing can only be described as a disaster. Compared to 22 contributing countries in the European Social Survey, New Zealand ranks 22nd in social wellbeing overall and worst overall on feeling close to people in the local area.

The rates of mental illness are far too high and the rates of flourishing are far too low. We are not as socially healthy as we ought to be, and in summary, this is just not good enough.

The case for a flourishing Aotearoa

The empirical case for promoting well-being has by now been settled: You are more creative when happy, you are more productive, you are more likely to be socially inclusive; you also make more remote connections, learn more skills and accumulate more resources for the future when you are experiencing positive emotions (for an excellent review check out NZ-based Work on Wellbeing). What this means is that the large, pervasive social problems yet to be solved are much more likely to tackled by a community of people who are flourishing—feeling good and functioning well. This is what we need in New Zealand, and nothing less than flourishing will do.

Also of interest: 'Why Lifehack focuses on improving youth wellbeing through technology'

What we need: Clear goal-posts

There are several innovations that are currently needed to allow us to address New Zealand’s well-being in a serious way.

Firstly, I think we need to get far more ambitious about our well-being goals for the country. We need extremely clear goal-posts, so allow me to offer—as a benchmark— these two complimentary aims: That we reduce the experience of mental illness by half in the population by 2030; and that we double the experience of flourishing in New Zealand by 2030. These goals are arbitrarily picked, but allow a starting point for the conversation that’s needed. A better way to go would be to poll the population about overall behind Costa Rica and Israel (Helliwell, Layard, & what we collectively want as well-being aims and then hold policy makers accountable.

Secondly, we need a joined up approach within the well-being community. At the moment, we have incredibly well-intentioned people all over the country working incredibly hard on their own individual projects and we need to take this model from out of the pre-digital age and introduce some modern connectivity. I think something like Loomio for well-being researchers would be a start. Something that would allow for the combined intellectual horsepower of the country to be brought to bear on the dizzying amount of research and intervention that is happening and needs to happen. We need to combine resources and figure out a way to usefully engage with a World where big data can inform us of important social phenomena that we ought to be noticing and doing something about.

Clear goals and a joined up approach I think would allow for the third essential ingredient, which is an agility to respond. And to be clear, this is not something new, but is entirely in keeping with the social entrepreneurial movement that Enspiral espouses.

Make this happen

Aspirational vision. Accelerating technology and learning. Social contagion. We have all the ingredients. We are a nation of over-achievers and why should this be any different for our aspirations about our own well-being? I don’t just invite debate over where we should go and what should be done, I’m calling on us all to sort this out. And I for one am unapologetic for wanting us to be World leaders with our own mental health.

About Carsten:

Carsten is a mental health promoter with a passion for well-being science and using tech to promote flourishing. When he is not talking about well-being he is either at Crossfit or drinking coffee. You can read more about him at the Mental Health Foundation.

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Why LIFEHACK focuses on 'Improving Youth Wellbeing through Technology'

Recently we launched LIFEHACK Labs - Aotearoa New Zealand's first social innovation lab. It's focus through the 5 week experience is to kickstart impact projects to improve youth wellbeing through technology.

Why Youth Wellbeing?

As many of you will know, LIFEHACK originated from the Prime Minister's Youth Mental Health project which shined a light on the challenges we face in our country with mental illness, stress, anxiety and other issues our young Kiwis face around our country. 

Our mandate at LIFEHACK was to explore how technology could act as a presentation or early intervention to help young people access services. The more we unpacked these mental health challenges and spoke with young people around the country through 2013 & 2014's events, the more we found people wanted to tackle the root causes, as well as helping people manage these challenges and alleviate the suffering.

In early 2014 we heeded that call and drive of our community, and tilted our focus towards Youth Wellbeing. We adopted the 5 Steps to Wellbeing which is widely recognised as leading research (from NEF in UK) to help people build personal resilience and wellness. Resilience is key to how we perceive and react to the world around us, it makes us more able to cope with unexpected changes, more adaptable to unknown futures.

We also recognised that our individual wellbeing is inextricably linked to other parts of the (global) society we live in - whether it's how our friends & whanau are getting on in life, a partner of ours, or big picture things like climate change, the local transport system, or decisions that are made for us in the Beehive which affect our future. Whilst resilience can get us so far in life, our wellness also depends on us interacting with this collective wellbeing, and feeling like we have the power to shape our own future - a sense of purpose.

It is clear we're here to work on complex social problems - wicked problems. To tackle these problems which are complex and interlinked, we need new approaches - we have technical and scientific labs to tackle the most pressing technical and scientific problems of our time, we need social labs to tackle our hardest social problems. To that end, we launched LIFEHACK Lab - and applications are open now.

Improving the wellbeing of young people is about working on all the big problems of our time, and unlocking the inherent creativity to be part of the solution in every single person in doing so. We have huge potential in Aotearoa New Zealand, but we're going to need each and every person if we're going to solve some of the problems ahead of us.

Why Technology?

The world is increasingly digital. Technology plays a role in almost every aspect of all of our lives in some form or another. Whether it's the mobile phone we use to call our friends, a website where we get information about upcoming events, the radio where we listen to music, a mobile app we use to learn a new language, or one of the newest devices which enable us to use our brain waves to control a digital interface... we have an opportunity to use technology for something more than productivity and efficiencies. Technology ventures around the world are showing us it's possible to fight cancer, treat depression, get fit, sleep better and more.

If we begin now, we can focus the future of technology on improving human wellbeing and driving positive behaviour change. This is the time of the internet of caring things.

Technology also signals an opportunity to help scale what is working with positive wellbeing strategies to other parts of the country, and indeed the world. 

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LIFEHACK Labs Vs. Accelerators & Incubators

Many young Kiwis have told us that they want the opportunity to take action to improve wellbeing for friends & whanau.

Over 75% of the people we spoke to said they would make space in their life if they were given the opportunity to do something truly impactful.

So we created LIFEHACK Labs.

As this is Aotearoa New Zealand's first ever social innovation lab, we put together this cheat sheet to give you a run down of what LIFEHACK Labs is all about.

Quite a few people have asked us how LIFEHACK Labs is different from Accelerator and Incubator programs, so we started with a quick side-by-side comparison. Accelerators & Incubators are important parts of the "support ecosystem", but LIFEHACK Labs - as you will see - is quite different.

Currently there is also a new breed of accelerators and incubators launching, such as LaunchPad from our friends at Ākina Foundation which seek to find and support a blended social & financial return. For the purposes of the below, we've compared to business accelerators & incubators.

We're excited to be able to provide this opportunity which may well produce teams with solid product/service ideas which would benefit from accelerator or incubator services once they have attended Labs.

If you have any questions, leave us a comment or get in touch - we'd love to hear from you!

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#LifehackSouthland was epic!

Southland has officially been Lifehacked!

We're still somewhere in the clouds after a weekend down in Invercargill working with the good people of Southland who really brought the good when it came to the first Lifehack Weekend in the deep south!

With over 55 people, we had a wonderful eclectic mix of skills, backgrounds, talents and mindsets. With our newly re-modelled weekend event, we got to work connecting with one another to share our stories and even our hopes and dreams for ourselves and our communities. It was off this platform we then launched a creative collaborathon (yup, we're coining that), and got to work on local innovator's projects.

Our amazing local project holders were from Murihuku Youth 'RAP', South Alive and 0800 What's Up?

Throughout the weekend some pretty amazing work happened - from designing mapping systems for South Alive's volunteer activities, to creating new web platforms for MYRAP's music videos, and UX workshops undertaken for 0800 What's Up? to better enable young people to get in touch.

We could talk all day about how awesome these projects were, what was created and how it all unfolded, but instead - we had the amazing ladies from Electric Shoelace Productions make a short video for us to share the buzz. Check it out!

A huge huge thanks to all our awesome #LifehackSouthland supporters ~ Southern Institute of Technology for the venue & pizzas, People's Coffee for the tasty brews, and the amazing team at Innov8 Invercargill who did SO much work to help bring us down and get our amazing new bunch of Lifehackers in the room.

We also have to thank Digital Stock (the local software development team) who we worked with to take some of these ideas and outcomes from the weekend, then develop them further and weave them into usable, relevant technology for the project holders. Over the course of a very intense week of work, they transformed the digital infrastructure of South Alive - creating a volunteer management system, zero rubbish mapping tool, and an online bike loan booking system (soon to be launched). As well as that, they kindly opened the doors of their office and mentored the MY RAP team who got together again to finish their amazing new MY RAP youtube channel. 

Huge kudos to everyone involved in #LifehackSouthland and welcome to the whanau!

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Join the Lifehack Team: Lifehack Labs Co-ordinator

LIFEHACK is recruiting for a Co-ordinator of our new program - New Zealand's first Social Innovation Lab - LIFEHACK Labs.

We're looking for a highly skilled new member for our team who is keen to help in this pioneering program which seeks to tackle complex social problems.

The Labs Co-ordinator will have a great variety of work to get their teeth into starting in June and running through to September, including contact with partners, mentors, and participants, finalising venue logistics and much more.

This is an exciting opportunity to join the team in an all important pilot phase, so we look forward to hearing from applicants.

Download the Role Description here.

Applications close 11 June 2014.

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LIFEHACK team takes 10 to take notice

Here at LIFEHACK HQ, we've been working to keep ourselves well, despite a hectic schedule of meetings, events, emails and building for a big middle of the year (more about that soon!).

One of the things we keep coming back to is the need to cut through the fuzz of every day life, be more present during our time together, and turn off our brains at night to get some good restful sleep instead of lying awake thinking about the things we need to do the next day.

A big part of the answer came when we were considering one of the 5 Steps to Wellbeing - "Take Notice".

Image credit: Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand

When we started reading up about "Take Notice" we found a lot of research and evidence pointing toward Mindfulness & Meditation as a great way in to practice this 'way to wellbeing' in our daily lives. We also met a lot of researchers working on this in Australia at the #Connect14 conference.

So after a particularly full on day down in Greymouth at our West Coast event, we decided to fire up our iPad and do a guided meditation as a team - it might sound strange initially but none of us had done much meditation before, so we thought we'd try one of the Apps from LifeStack (our library of digital wellbeing tools). We chose Stop, Breathe & Think - an iOS app which asks you to input some of your current mood and feelings and then it suggests some guided meditations to shift your mood. It was a revolution for us as a team, and we had some great conversations once we'd spent 10 minutes concentrating on our breathing & letting ourselves relax.

Each of us finds our own way when we're back home in Wellington, but I've been recently using Headspace (a UK-based Android App) which gives you a free 10 day program called "Take 10". I often use it during the day when I'm feeling somewhat overwhelmed as well as often in the evening to clear my mind before bed.

Finally I thought we should make you aware of a great initiative called MINDFUL IN MAY.  If you feel like some of the above gels with you and you'd like to try out a little mindfulness in your life (go on, it's really not that scary!) then there's a great chance to get involved from 1 May!

One of our good friends here in New Zealand - Marianne Elliott (@zenpeacekeeper) is also involved as one of the experts.

Mindful in May gives you the opportunity to kick off a daily practice with a free one month program, a community of people around the globe who're doing the same thing, and a very busy hashtag to follow and post with - all in exchange for a small donation to Charity:Water.

Sign up now here. 

You can also join the Lifehack team here.

We also aim to get a guest post from the excellent Dr Elise Bialylew (@meditatecreate) sometime in May to tell us how it's all going!

Post by Sam Rye from the LIFEHACK Core Team 

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Weekly Roundup - 23 April - Social Innovation, Wellbeing Research, Techspiration & Startup News

Welcome to our latest LIFEHACK Hump Day Roundup, where we bring you some quick links and inspiration from around the web focused on Social Innovation, Wellbeing Research, Techspiration & Startup News. You can contribute by getting in touch with LIFEHACK if there’s something you think we should include!

Techspiration: Check out this very excellent Wellington-based project to enable people who’re depressed to reach out for help when things get bad. It’s called Code Blue, and it’s run by the excellent people who’re also behind other tech projects like GoalPost which aims to help people quit smoking. They’ve currently got a crowdfunding campaign happening, so drop by and help them hit their targets.

Learn: Why metrics matter for new projects + ventures and how to do them well by KISS Metrics. We love this as it’s a great beginner’s guide to data analytics and the article gives a great guide to getting started.

Insight: Why positive psychology is disrupting Psychotherapy, the role technology is playing in it? This article outlines an important growing focus on shifting the focus from mental illness to mental wellness, and nicely explains how a cocktail of drugs isn’t the only way to do that.

Event: Southland - we’re coming your way soon, and Anna Guenther has 10 reasons she thinks you should be there on May 16th. Check out the blog.

Startup News: Sometimes you need a little inspiration and explanation about how other startups bootstrap their ventures to break even (running lean and reinvesting profits rather than taking on investment). This is a great article about how a startup team managed to work their way to $25k in revenue in 3 months with a good idea, rigorous testing and a prototype product which consisted of a Wufoo form and Mailchimp.

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