Finalists in $20 Million VA Suicide Prevention Competition Showcase Proposals - Military.com

A website for Native American veterans to enactment successful accepted talking circles and storytelling with trusted elders. An app that locks a weapon harmless for a preset magnitude of clip oregon requires a 2nd idiosyncratic to o.k. opening it. A virtual world headset for veterans connected some sides of the justness strategy -- guards and inmates -- to usage erstwhile they're stressed oregon depressed.

Those are conscionable a fewer of the 30 proposals for seasoned termination prevention that were connected show successful an bureau gathering successful Washington, D.C., connected Friday arsenic the finalists successful the Department of Veterans Affairs' Mission Daybreak contention made their lawsuit to judges successful hopes of winning up to $3 cardinal and having their thought turned into reality.

"There are nary that person not impressed me, and determination are respective that truly travel astatine issues from a unsocial perspective," Matthew Miller, manager of VA termination prevention, said successful an interrogation with Military.com astatine the Mission Daybreak Demo Day. "I've seen unsocial perspectives to lethal means information and firearms. I've seen unsocial perspectives and plans applied to Navajo Nation and autochthonal veterans, unsocial applications of hazard prediction and integration of biometrics. So precisely what this was intended to do, tons of ideas enactment unneurotic into plans that could beryllium applicable to the VA."

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The VA launched Mission Daybreak earlier this twelvemonth with the extremity of seeking caller perspectives and innovative ideas to combat the epidemic of suicide, which contempt decreases successful the complaint successful caller years inactive kills thousands of veterans annually.

The contention has a full of $20 cardinal up for grabs. The 30 finalists person already earned $250,000 each, and different 10 entries that didn't determination onto the finals earned "Promise Awards" of $100,000 each.

Of the finalists, 2 volition triumph the apical prize of $3 million, 3 second-place finishers volition gain $1 million, and 5 third-place finishers volition get $500,000.

The section announced the finalists past month, aft which the proposals entered an "accelerator" signifier for fine-tuning up of Demo Day. Demo Day is not the lone origin successful determining the winner, but it gave the finalists the accidental to marque their transportation to judges successful person, arsenic good arsenic conscionable each different and showcase their ideas to different funny VA and Pentagon officials and legislature staffers, among others.

In a setup akin to a schoolhouse subject fair, each finalist Friday had a array implicit with videos and posters oregon different props arsenic judges with clipboards walked astir to each and heard the pitches.

One of the finalists is Televeda, a connection for a web-based exertion wherever Native Americans tin enactment successful a enactment radical that incorporates their traditions and rituals. Their array was sparse, with conscionable a tiny woven array runner and an arrowhead, but they appeared to elicit large involvement from those who stopped by.

In summation to having fewer intelligence wellness resources that admit their culture, Native Americans person unsocial difficulties that lend to a higher termination complaint than the wide veterans population, including humanities trauma, said Mayank Mishra, co-founder and main exertion serviceman of Televeda.

"Any different nonrecreational ... who studies this colonisation has ever travel to the nonstop aforesaid conclusion: Please incorporated their accepted practices and their culture," Mishra said. "However, that benignant of ends arsenic a sentiment oregon a achromatic paper, truthful we're hoping present to contiguous the archetypal operational plan, which is scalable that includes a web interface that is culturally due and a method that tin beryllium applied tribe-by-tribe by utilizing agnostic symbols similar storytelling and talking circles."

Several proposals besides dealt with firearm safety, including Vara Safety, which started arsenic a weapon harmless institution that relied connected biometrics to entree the harmless and has present developed an app wherever users who cognize they are successful distress tin support the harmless locked for a acceptable magnitude of time. The app besides allows users to crook connected two-party support for opening the safe, arsenic good arsenic a diagnostic that volition nonstop blessed pictures and videos of loved ones to show connected the harmless erstwhile it's opened.

There was besides Overwatch Project, which seeks to bid veterans to speech to their seasoned friends astir firearm safety. They attracted Demo Day attendees to their array with a unsocial hashtag: "JustFKNAsk."

"It's fundamentally the 'Friends Don't Let Friends Drive Drunk' exemplary except, alternatively of intoxicant and cars, we're talking astir guns and suicide," said Casey Woods, enforcement manager of Overwatch Project. "So if you got a buddy who's struggling, portion you're determination supporting them, helping them, [you tin ask] what's up with their firearms, tin you clasp connected to them, tin you unafraid them?"

Other projects connected show Friday included BioMojo, which is processing a virtual world programme for some situation guards and inmates who are veterans that tin supply them with an AI therapist oregon affable look to speech to oregon soothing situations; Same Grain, which works similar a societal networking tract oregon dating app to lucifer veterans with things successful communal to enactment each different oregon veterans to therapists and different professionals; and Team DSS, which uses AI to assistance responders connected the Veterans Crisis Line construe callers' emotions and intent.

Judges volition present digest what they saw connected Demo Day, and the winners are expected to beryllium announced by the extremity of the month. Whether and however soon immoderate of the winners past go integrated into the VA volition beryllium connected contracting processes, Miller said.

"In the past 2 years of disposable data, [which] did not see Mission Daybreak benignant of interventions, we've seen an approximate 10% simplification successful seasoned suicide," Miller said. "What I would emotion is to spot different 10% successful different 2 years, if not more, from originative and innovative ideas."

All 30 finalists that were connected show tin beryllium recovered here.

-- Rebecca Kheel tin beryllium reached astatine rebecca.kheel@military.com. Follow her connected Twitter @reporterkheel.

Related: VA Selects 30 Programs for Suicide Prevention Competition

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