Australian start-up Soldier.ly, developers of the world’s first smartwatch stress detection app, has been announced as one of the winners of Zurich Insurance’s inaugural Innovation World Championship at an awards ceremony in Switzerland.

Called USTRESS, Soldier.ly’s app was designed to reduce suffering and suicide in the veteran community, a group which comprises over 25,000,000 veterans throughout the western world.

Australian army veteran Chris Rhyss Edwards came up with the idea for the USTRESS app after surviving a suicide attempt due to being interrupted by an SMS from a friend. This technological intervention led Chris to design a smartwatch app that gives veterans a practical and anonymous tool for monitoring and managing stress by tracking biofeedback data and alerting them and their support network when it detects signs of increasing stress levels. 

Founder and CEO Chris Rhyss Edwards said, “Like many veterans, I was too embarrassed to ask for help, so I created Soldier.ly to give veterans an early warning system for discreetly managing their mental health by tracking and directly addressing stress and anxiety.” 

Professor Jane Burns, Chair of Soldier.ly, said “Suicide in Australia is at epidemic levels. If Soldier.ly saves one life it will be a game changer, if it saves 1,000 and helps the 25,000,000 veterans worldwide, it will radically reinvent the way we think about keeping ourselves mentally fit.” 

In the US, a veteran commits suicide every hour, while Australia has lost more soldiers to suicide than fighting in Afghanistan. Many live with physical or psychological effects from their service, and far too many struggle with the transition from the highly structured and supportive military environment to life as a civilian. This range of issues often leads veterans to engage in harmful behaviours, suicidal ideation and/or suicide.

Quickly attracting worldwide attention, USTRESS competed against 450 other applicants from 43 countries in The Zurich Innovation World Championship.

The global round of the Zurich Innovation World Championship was judged by Zurich’s executive committee, who together decided on four winners. The winners will now work together with Zurich to develop pilot programs that will make their products and services available to Zurich's customers around the world. 

Mario Greco, Zurich Insurance Group CEO, said, “The Zurich Innovation World Championship underlines our ongoing quest to attract and retain the best and most innovative talent across the globe. We received applications from Argentina to Australia, demonstrating the breadth of talent, ideas and people who recognize the opportunity to work with and learn from Zurich. We are very excited to be working with our winners to develop cutting-edge new services, approaches and capabilities that will help us better meet the evolving needs of our customers, employees and other stakeholders globally.” 

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