Security Halt!
Welcome to Security Halt! Podcast, the show dedicated to Veterans, Active Duty Service Members, and First Responders. Hosted by retired Green Beret Deny Caballero, this podcast dives deep into the stories of resilience, triumph, and the unique challenges faced by those who serve.
Through powerful interviews and candid discussions, Security Halt! Podcast highlights vital resources, celebrates success stories, and offers actionable tools to navigate mental health, career transitions, and personal growth.
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Security Halt!
AI for Veterans: Josh Otero on Mental Health, Peer Support & the Future of Wellness Tech
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Can Artificial Intelligence save lives? In this powerful episode of Security Halt!, host Deny Caballero sits down with wellness entrepreneur Josh Otero to explore the groundbreaking intersection of AI, mental health, and veteran care.
Josh shares his journey from fitness to tech innovation, unveiling Ilana.ai—a revolutionary AI-powered peer support platform designed to help veterans manage isolation, depression, and PTSD through real-time, empathetic interaction.
Together, they dive into the urgent mental health crisis facing our veteran community, the role of AI in suicide prevention, and how Ilana.ai is breaking barriers in therapy continuity, crisis response, and access to support. This conversation is a must-listen for anyone passionate about veteran wellness, mental health innovation, and the future of holistic care.
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Chapters
00:00 Introduction to the Conversation
02:50 The Role of AI in Veteran Mental Health
05:47 Josh Otero's Journey and the Warrior Gamer Foundation
08:51 Building AI with Empathy and Understanding
11:56 Addressing Daily Stressors and Transition Challenges
15:01 Accessibility and Engagement with AI
17:56 Overcoming Hesitations Towards AI in Mental Health
20:53 Competition and the Future of AI in Mental Health
24:10 Current Status and Future Plans for Ilana.ai
28:16 Therapeutic Continuity and Sharing Notes
30:00 Challenges in Mental Health Treatment for Veterans
32:50 Crisis Management and AI's Role
34:58 Building Community Connections
39:24 Integrating Technology for Holistic Health
44:53 Funding and Future Development of AI Solutions
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LinkedIn: Josh Otero
Email: Josh@elanah.ai
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Produced by Security Halt Media
Security Odd Podcast. Let's go the only podcast that's purpose-built from the ground up to support you Not just you, but the wider audience, everybody. Authentic, impactful and insightful conversations that serve a purpose to help you. And the quality has gone up. It's decent. It's hosted by me, Danny Caballero. It's decent, it's hosted by me, Denny Caballero, Don't feel guilty, but certainly there's those big events but I'm like man, I'd rather be home Family, I mean especially with kids when they're young.
Speaker 2:you got to take advantage of that, because they don't stay young forever.
Speaker 1:No, no, they don't. Josh and Tara welcome. How are you doing?
Speaker 2:Doing well. How are you Doing?
Speaker 1:well, welcome. How you doing, Doing well, how are you Doing well, man? Advocacy and support for our veterans never stops, man. It's an ongoing mission and I am excited to have you on today. We're finally able to make it happen to talk about the intersection between mental health, ai and our veterans. This is a powerful, powerful tool that, certainly in the last few years, has become so profound in everything from medical applications, certainly within the defense tech, but everyday use.
Speaker 1:We utilize AI. Now, if you're not using chat, gpt to help you figure out how to, best you know, optimize your work schedule at home or to create meal plans, you're using it for you know how to you know, build your own business plans. It's everywhere and everybody's using it. But when we start talking about how it can help us with stemming the epidemic of veteran suicide, then we get to thinking, which is often enough and oftentimes the most important thing right, I can connect with you, bring you back from the void, get you a step back off that ledge, so to speak. But how do we get AI into this? So today, man, I want to break this down, but also, let's start off with your journey. How'd you find yourself in this space, man?
Speaker 2:Oh, that's a good question. So you know, I've been in like the health and wellness space for pretty much my entire life, um, athlete and kind of um always been not a veteran myself, but I've always, you know, had a close tie to the military and veteran community Best friend is still serving and so always really felt an affinity towards that. And when COVID hit, I was working in the gaming space. I had a sports nutrition company and we were trying to really develop a healthy alternative to the monsters and Red Bulls and things like that, and I noticed this huge spike in social isolation, loneliness, depression, leading to suicide in my community, which was 18 to 34 year olds. But I also saw it big time in the military, even like with the cadets, and you know there was two cadets that took their life at the Air Force Academy I think it was February of 2020. And then six sailors Force Academy I think it was February of 2020, and then Six Sailors, I think a couple months after that. So in August or October of 2020, I founded the Warrior Gamer Foundation with a mission to promote health, wellness and community shift through gaming, and so we did our first in person event in August of 2021. And we brought all the branches together, including Space Force and Coast Guard, and played this game called Rocket League. Because I'm not a gamer myself, I just know that gaming is a tool to connect others. So when we were isolated, you know, the only way to really connect us through this and Zoom really wasn't that big, but gaming was so we could play and you could be in Afghanistan, I could be here and we're as if we're alive, and so that was. I knew that was a powerful tool and so we did that. First event Uh, we didn't really have veterans at the time, it was just active duty, um, and we connected it with this big international rugby tournament and it went really well. Uh, year two, we added a veteran component and, uh, brought in some Gold Star kids and it just accelerated from there.
Speaker 2:So, fast forward to this past year, we were hosting our mental health summit, which we do every year, and we had the secretary of the VA there and he kind of spoke on what's the VA doing to address the younger 40 and under veterans, because it's different, right, the engagement level with veterans that are 40 and under is not there, and so the VA was really trying to change the way they address them, and gaming was obviously a tool to do that. And then we did a town hall session after that and one of the things that kind of came out of that day was how do we? You know, we've got a discord server which, if you're not familiar with discord, it's like a Facebook and a LinkedIn kind of wrapped in one, and you have different communities in there. You could, you know, private rooms. We've got like 40 different rooms. So if you're into memes, you do that. If you're into pets, you could do that. Ais or drones, you could do that.
Speaker 2:One of the channels we have in there is called Peer Connect and it's basically it's peer-to-peer support, veteran-to-veteran or active duty-to-veteran, and we're there 24-7. The problem was it's all volunteer. We have like 10 or 12 volunteers at any one time and, if you know, darkness doesn't typically strike in the afternoon at like 1230 in the afternoon, it strikes two o'clock in the morning. Well, how many volunteers are really going to be up at two to be able to staff the phones? Reality is maybe one or two, and so it started.
Speaker 2:A question came out how can we scale this? And I'm a big proponent of AI. I use ChatGPT almost the month it came out. How can we scale this? And I'm a big proponent of AI. I use ChatGPT almost the month it came out and so I understand AI and I've been using it in multiple factors. So I'm like, huh, maybe there's a way that we could utilize AI to kind of solve this problem.
Speaker 2:So I called my, who is now my co-founder. She is a AI expert. She had worked at Google and a bunch of other companies really making AI smart, and I said, hey, here's what I'd like to do. Can we do this? And she's like, yes, we can. So her and I came together and we started Elanaai, really with a mission to fill that gap between no care and health care, to support the veteran and active duty.
Speaker 2:And what it is is. It's basically it's a platform to connect, act as a peer support battle. Buddy wingman, you know whatever, you know your branch, you call it, and we're there 24-7. It's completely confidential, private conversations. We're there to talk you through whatever you're going through, share experiences or talk about experiences that you may have had and how do you overcome those. And it's trained in CBT, which is cognitive behavioral therapy, positive motivational interviewing. We've got a team of like a dozen psychologists, therapists, pathologists, you know, you name the spectrum. And then we've also got a veterans advisory board, which you're one of them, and we get input from the military and veteran community and then we get input from our docs and our specialists to be able to train Ilana to be able to better talk to and engage with the service member veteran and their family, to and engage with the service member veteran and their family. No, so that's kind of how ilana was born and kind of what we've we built over the last few months.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's, it's um, it's no easy task to. The thing that I immediately wanted to explore and talk about today was the, you know, when we sit in a room or even on a phone call, even something like this, um, we can connect. Even if I didn't, we just dialed in, not knowing each other, we could talk, we can engage and learn about each other and through our engagement, through our our you know, through having an open discussion and dialogue and through vulnerability, you can sense of, okay, this person's in trouble, this person might need help, this person is coming from this background and, even though you didn't serve yourself, you can develop empathy. You can sit down and hold space for somebody. How do we build that into an AI system? How do we build that sort of AI compassion, empathy, to understand.
Speaker 1:And the complexity of military talk, the complexity of our dark humor, because I know from my guys, our special operations individuals they're cynical. If they reach out for this tool in their darkest moment and they do decide to use it, they're not the kindest individuals, they're not the easiest. Shout out to my buddy, david. We were just talking about this a while back and he showed me how he treats chat GPT and it's very different than how I utilize chat GPT Very different, in fact. I came across an article saying that people that say utilize manners and say thank you and please with chat GPT is like burning extra resources by using that sort of mannerism of being kind to an AI system. But how do we make it so they understand the dark humor, the negativity coming from somebody that's in danger or in need of help? How do we possibly create that sort of understanding within an AI model?
Speaker 2:So the way AI works is you know it uses contextual reasoning, right, so it's all context-based. So what we're trying to do and we're still figuring this out right we upgrade it. You know it uses contextual reasoning, right? So it's all context based. So what we're trying to do and we're still figuring this out, right, we're we, we upgrade it, you know, every day, every week, um, and we constantly get feedback from our team to upgrade. So this is not a static model. So, just to be clear, this is an evolution and we're continuing evolving it, but by putting in military language.
Speaker 2:Um, we're, we want to teach some videos. We want to teach some videos, we want to throw in some movies, because movies help to train it. So we haven't done that yet, but we are going to do that, we're trying to. We got to make sure there's no copyright laws and all that kind of stuff, but that's one of the ways that we can do it. So, the more it understands context and meaning and that type of language because, you're right, it's not regular civilian language and if we're talking like a civilian which we're working not to, because that's why we're it understands like, where's your MOS? You know you're, you know, were you an enlisted, were you an officer? What are the differences? So we're really trying to train that by providing that knowledge on books, on papers, and then, you know, ideally, on movies, so it then could understand. Okay, this is where they're going, cause if we give it context, then it could understand what you're talking about. So we're not there quite yet, but we're on our we're, we're better than average and we're we're getting there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know. The other thing that that it's important to talk about too is I first the immediate. The immediate thing that I wanted to engage with and figure out is how can it help somebody that's in the middle of crisis in a when you get that 2am call? It's never something that it's mildly. It's always been a serious situation. I'm in the verge. I'm actually thinking of doing this. It's a crisis moment, all hands on deck. But what about the day-to-day life situations? One of the biggest stressors for anybody is that transition period coming out of the military. How do we help address the everyday stressors that you might need support, the financial issues, the identity issues, because these are all big issues that maybe your friend doesn't feel comfortable talking about it with you. But if they can utilize an AI platform and talk about those daily stressors, that could be extremely helpful too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's we've seen, especially, again, this is with the younger generation, those 40 and under a lot of them, and there's like three studies potentially to fat check that. But there are multiple studies that show that under 40, they are more comfortable talking to an AI chat bot than they are a person. Plus, if you're talking to a person, you might be sharing something that's embarrassing and you feel like you might be judged or something that you might feel shame and you don't want to talk about it with a person. It's a lot easier to talk about with a bot that's not judging you, it's not critiquing you and you know it's private. Nobody could actually access your information. So that's kind of our play is. We feel like maybe the 70-year-old's not going to use it, but they might, but the 35-year-old definitely will, and that person may again not feel comfortable talking to an actual person. Because, at the end of the day, we're not trying to replace a therapist, we're not medical. We're a wellness product, right? We're that space between no care and health care. We're not trying to be a doctor. We're a wellness product, right? We're that space between no care and healthcare. We're not trying to be a doctor, we're not trying to be a clinical psychologist. We're trying to be that person that you could talk to, share your feelings and talk day to day, because you also want to have somebody that you could talk your positives with.
Speaker 2:Right, I just got a promotion at work or I just got my first job. I retired out of the military after 21 years. I just got my first job as a civilian, and it's like an executive vice president or something. So that's, and you maybe you're, you're single at the time, or your wife is busy, or your husband is busy and you just want to share it. You could share that with Ilana, you could share.
Speaker 2:I'm really stressed. I've never had to do all this stuff on my own. I've used to the been in the military and I've never been able to do this. How do I do this? How do I make a budget? How do I plan? I have debt, like what do I do? I'm stressed. I feel my spouse is going to leave me because I I don't know how to manage stress, and so we're there to kind of talk you through that, whatever that.
Speaker 2:You know that situation where I just broke up. You know breakups or, like you said, transition. Transition is a really hard part and that's kind of the purpose of the foundation is right to help you through that transition finds a sense of meaning and purpose. We want to be able to do that, too, through the ai. So the ai is trained to kind of how do you, how do I find a sense of meaning and purpose when my identity was being a green beret, and so I was at for 15 years and now I'm just a civilian.
Speaker 2:So I just went from an A18 to a C civilian. Nobody cares about me, nobody's telling me what to do, I have no community. And so now, what this job thing? So I'm going to be scrubbing toilets, like I was just, you know, a team lead, and now I'm scrubbing toilets Like how do I? I don't even know how to comprehend that. And so those are some of the things that we're really trying to help people work through is how do you deal with that Cause that's a big transition especially if you come from an elite unit and you're now just, uh, you know, bagging gross.
Speaker 2:You know, like you're just getting a regular job cause you just don't know what to do. That's a big transition.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and you touched on something that I wanted to highlight for a moment Accessibility to something like a software, an AI that can sit at your desktop, that you can reach out to. One of the biggest things that I always heard and I experienced myself when you're going through something, when you're lost in your own thoughts, with anxiety or depression, you don't want to Google for a resource, you don't want to reach out. But if you have something that you're comfortable typing into a chat system that you're comfortable with, that can give you the resource. That's one thing I realized by starting this project the amount of people that reached out just asking for a resource because they didn't want to look it up. Or they reach out initially and, through engaging through a text message, you offer them the resource or you offer to look it up for them. It's insane. One small inbox message leads to a connection to the Cohen Network, a connection to the TBI Treatment Center that's nearest to them.
Speaker 1:Oftentimes, whether it's shame or guilt or you're just stuck in your negativity, you don't want to even look for the answers or for the keys for your own freedom. But if you connect with somebody and they can do the work for you, you'll receive it, and that's something that I see that could be extremely useful with this platform. You engage with it, you describe what you're going through and it could prompt you through a series of questions and dialogue. Then you have a resource at your fingertips, which I realize a lot of people. That's exactly what they need. They just need to have the number to text. I deal with it with a lot of my friends. I'm going through this. Okay, here's the resource, here's the number. Call them, email them, and I feel that our older generation, like you said earlier, they might not engage with it, but our generation of GWAT veterans and the younger veterans, they most certainly will. They've been doing it already through video games and connecting with their friends through, like you said, discord chatbots.
Speaker 1:Like Craig, by building something that is already used, that's already utilized for everyday resources, can really help save lives, because we're not trying to create something that will take over the job of a therapist. It's connective tissue, get you to the next level of care. But how do we get it to the point where society and individuals that are, you know, maybe in the middle, see it as being something worth investing or promoting or being, you know, connected with Cause, you know, when we bring up AI, there's always that that side of the the uh, the community and a populace it's like well, no, I don't really want to trust a robot with my mental health, with my information. I even have friends that are hesitant to try chat GPT because they feel it'll scrape all their data and give it to China. There's an incredible amount of people that have a lot of hostility towards an AI. How do we begin to make it more palatable? How do we make it more accessible to individuals and make it something that is of value to everyone?
Speaker 2:I think it's you know. First, it's getting into everybody's hands for them to use it and if we get a new you know recruit to use it all the way through, because boot camp is a stressful time too, right? We know there's a lot of things that happen during boot camping, going through your initial training. So you know if we're using it when we start and we're continuing to use it, it's easier to use it during transition and post-transition. So I think that's one is really getting it pushed from the top down. Second is, I think the more people are in, you know it's it's surrounding them, because AI two years ago was kind of like a oh, you're using it, you know it was kind of this odd situation.
Speaker 2:Now it's in everything like every single company uses ai yeah everybody's marketing their own different style, a different one, yeah I don't care if it's a painting company or a roofing company, like they use AI because they're marketing, they're using AI to market, and so you know. And then obviously, if it's a tech company, they have to use it, otherwise they're going to be out of business.
Speaker 2:So I think the more people feel comfortable with AI and it's just, they're surrounded by it. You can't, there's no job. I mean maybe if you're digging ditches, but if you're the digger, maybe, but if you're owning the company, you're definitely using it. So you know, I think the more we're surrounded by it and the more we see it actually works and we see it actually can improve our life versus taking from us. I think that's you know, it's it's breaking down those barriers. And the easiest way is starting them right, when they are, first, you know enlisting or you know going into the military, or second, is they're surrounded by it and they see it works. So those are like two things that we're well. The first one is what we're really trying to push. Second one is what ChatGPT and every other company is doing is they're just getting it out to the general public.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know at this point, you know we have to imagine that there's, there's gotta be, is there competition in the space? And, if so, how do we stay on the leading edge of it? How do we bring this to market before somebody else gets out there, gets ahead of it? Because I've imagined, like teaching and training an AI model is not as easy as teaching an adult how to go through, get peer-to-peer support and certified. This is tricky.
Speaker 2:It is and it's expensive. I mean you hear, like, how ChatGPD spent billions of dollars training their models. So the good news is we could take from a lot of those models so we're not having to spend billions. Well, we don't have billions of dollars, but we don't have to do that. For us, you know, for us to stay ahead, it's getting us known, right, getting into the VA, getting to the DOD, showing the value that we could bring, how we could help, you know, solve that gap. Right now the VA is 40,000 mental health professionals short. That's not getting solved by humans. So we've got to figure out that bridge of how we can take somebody that maybe not doesn't need to see a psychologist, but they just need to talk to somebody and we can help be that bridge. So it's really getting us known and in the right hands of the right people that are the decision makers. So we stay ahead of the competition. There is competition, right.
Speaker 2:People use chat GPT, even though chatPT is not trained in mental health and there's now reports saying it just gives you what you want to hear. It tells you what you want to hear, which is not the right way to do it. Well, if you think about what ChatGPT is. It's a horizontally trained AI. So it's trained on everything. They've taken every, scraped all of humankind's information and dumped it in there, so there's trillions of data points in there. What we're building is more of a vertical AI. So you hear the term hallucination. It just makes things up.
Speaker 2:By building a vertical AI, we're trying to avoid that. So we're specifically training it with specific data like mental health, building resilience, mindset, mindfulness, all these types of practices, and then military culture, military language, what does a rank mean, what are the different ranks? And so all the military things, things from the VA. So it's specifically trained to deal with that individual versus. Tell me about how to, what's the formula to build an atom bomb, you know, whatever that's not our, that's not. But if it's mental or building resilience, that's what our thing is.
Speaker 2:So we're the only ones currently that are building in the military and veteran space. There's other companies, like Headspace, that is developing. You know they've been in. I used to use Headspace as a mindfulness thing. So there's companies that are in this space, in the mindfulness, ai, mental health space but none specifically in this vertical. Now my guess is, as soon as they see us being successful, they're going to want to jump in, which is to your point. Why do we have to stay ahead otherwise? And so by being in front of the right people, attending SoftWeek and trying to talk to the right people, building the best product that is out there and having people like Sherry help build it for us, and getting the best and brightest minds from the professional community, but also the military and veteran community, to help build it, because if it's built specifically for them, by them, we're going to have the best product, because it was built for the community, by the community.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's important to understand too that we are, and we have been, in a critical shortage for mental health professionals. And as much as we think that we're going to solve our way out of this problem by certifying more psychologists, certifying more mental health professionals licensed, you know it's not going to happen fast enough and we're never going to fill the void. What we need to do is start thinking outside the box. That's why I always champion peer-to-peer support. You get better, you start having progress in your life. You don't have to solve the problems for your peer, you just have to show them what worked for you and be connective tissue to the resources. Now, with this AI model, it's the same thing. We're building another peer-to-peer support system, but it's also helping in the day-to-day.
Speaker 1:I always tell people it's not your mental health journey doesn't end one day, and then you claim victory over your depression, your anxiety, the things you're going through. You learn how to live. You learn how to manage the things you're dealing with. Put a lot of that trauma behind you. You solve it, but you're still going to have bad days. In those bad days, it's a lot easier to reach for that AI model that you've come to use. Come to trust, that can give you that box breathing exercise. That can give you that meditation routine that you didn't stick with, that has helped you before.
Speaker 1:Those are the things that I'm envisioning, because those are the things that I needed, and instead of looking at the sticky paper, instead of digging back into my workbook, if I want to use the app, I can reach for the app, and I think that's something that a lot of people want and can utilize on a daily basis.
Speaker 1:It's just a matter of getting it out there to them. And the other thing that is important to understand is a lot of people still have a lot of hesitation getting into that office and sitting down with a therapist. No matter how much we talk about it, no matter how much we advocate for it, there's a lot of people that are still going to say, no, I don't want to do that. This is something you can bring to somebody right now or in the near future, and I think that needs to be talked about a lot more. My way to healing isn't going to be their way to healing, but if we have something that can ease them into this, I think we can start having the conversation, and I think that's something that we need to remind ourselves. It's not about pushing resources, but giving them something that's readily available, easy to download and have on their person. When we look at the stages of bringing this out and finally getting it out to the customer, where are we at right now with Alana?
Speaker 2:So we're currently piloting, so we're working to get it out to our we're working. So there's a big funding mechanism called Face to Fight, which USA put a bunch of money into and it's helping nonprofits. So we're partnering with a nonprofit to get it in the hands of about 500 veterans to start using it more. We have probably about 140 beta testers now that are using it and giving us feedback. The next step is we're going after VA contracts, dod contracts and partner contracts. So we're looking at some primes to be a subprime to get into there. I'm trying to get in front of Congress to help push it. So we're at kind of the pilot phase and getting some adoption and users through those areas and then we want to be able to deploy it, you know, in the next year to whoever picks up. You know, if the VA funds us at the DOD, wherever we can get the funding to pay for it. So we're kind of in that pilot phase and you know, you know to your point.
Speaker 2:One of the things that we've seen is I've spoken to, you know, over the last five years I've spoken to hundreds of veterans, maybe more than that, and for you to get service, to go see a psychologist, depending on where you live. Six to eight week wait. If I'm in trauma and if I'm in need, I can't necessarily wait eight weeks to go see somebody, and if you're active on some basis it's nine weeks and so, and then you wait another six weeks and then it could be a different person. So there's no continuum of care. So nothing against what they're doing, but if we can be that, that again that bridge, so you talk to that therapist.
Speaker 2:We also have the ability to share notes, right. So you know you can have different conversations with chat GPT. You may not want to share all those with your therapist, but maybe you share your one that you're talking about your transition issues, and I could share that one with my therapist that I'm going to see in two weeks. I've never met her, I don't know, she doesn't know me, I don't know. So I want to share my last six weeks of conversations with Ilana with her, so she can at least know who I am. And then you know when I go in to see her I'm not spending. If it's an hour session, I'm not spending 45 minutes giving her that information that she just saw and read in five minutes. So that's one of the things too, is we're trying to make it easier for the therapist and provider so you could share your notes. Again, it's only on you because those are 100% private, unless you decide to share those notes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's one of the most common grievances that I've heard from veterans that have utilized the VA to go get treatment with a therapist A it's not always the same person and it's constantly having to relive, like Groundhog's Day, the same first interaction over and over and over again with somebody new. There's no continuity, there's no handoff or warm handoff into another provider and that burns anybody out. That's going to deflate you, that's going to constantly make you feel like you're not heard, you're not validating what you're going through. Then nobody cares. It's a little bit better when you are lucky enough to get you know if you can get outside treatment and referral to a civilian provider. But still having to re-engage and share those same stories from the same start point, that's frustrating. But being able to have that handover where, like hey, here's my notes of everything I'm dealing with, if you can read over those first, that way I don't have to continue going over it again for the fifth time, I'd really appreciate it. But that's on you right, being able to keep that stuff locked in, stuff locked in.
Speaker 1:But it does bring up one thing that I that stuck out to me is like okay, if we have a history of self-harm, if we have a history of hurting ourselves or hurting others. We have that mandated reporter, somebody that's like hey, like this is dangerous. This person needs, you know, we need to take the appropriate level of care. How can we make sure that, if somebody is reporting something that's dangerous, potential crime, that our AI platform knows what to do? That's the scary part, because I know that's a reality. That's a situation that, unfortunately, our mental health providers find themselves in. Unfortunately, our mental health providers find themselves in. Somebody has now divulged that there's been a serious, heinous crime that's occurred. How do we navigate those situations?
Speaker 2:That's a really good point. So because of the privacy measures that we take, we don't have the ability to report it. But what we do have the ability to do is to push them to get help. So like, right now we're working with other providers to build this in, but right now it's 988, right. And then we also there's a veteran resource from the VA that we put in there.
Speaker 2:So right now, like if you're saying I'm thinking about you know I'm walking over to the liquor cabinet and I have my gun in my hand it will say call 988, call 988. You know, gun in my hand. It will say call 988, call 988. You know it'll continually tell you call 988, push this. It's a live link, you know. So we push you to that resource. What we want to build is additional resources. So if you're in Chicago, we could push you to the local provider in Chicago. Or if you're in Detroit, we could push you to Detroit. So we we're not there yet. By next year we will be. But that's that's kind of our way to kind of try to deal with. That is really to urge you to see somebody and to seek professional assistance, cause we're just a AI chat bot.
Speaker 2:We're not you know we can't do, you know we don't have the ability to do certain things, as if your psychologist or your, your therapist would be able to do so, pushing you to them hey, you're in need. Let's end our conversation and let's talk to a professional.
Speaker 1:It almost makes you wonder if there's any way to build in a dispatch system that gets you into a live discussion. Because that's one thing that I realized thinking about this the amount of times I've been on the phone with somebody. They divulge something where it's okay. Now it's escalated, Now it's like okay, now I'm getting, now I have to get in the vehicle, I have to go to you. Um, because it is sadly the reality. A lot of people will engage in discussion and then, fortunately, there's alcohol involved and personal firearms get in the mix and it's. How do we ensure that we can continue to provide a positive resource and de-escalate the situation? How can we get that veteran or individual on the phone to just take a step back? Think through it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, one of the things that we're doing and this somewhat addresses that. But if you're in crisis, crisis it doesn't. But we're going to be building an affinity groups. So the example is you like pick a ball or you were a green beret, we're going to build it. Build in these groups. They're anonymous groups, but you'll be with actual people where you could communicate and talk to nice, like one of the first via exits are going to be like going over to the warrior gamer foundation discord server and here's live people you could talk to and here's a community can be a part of. So we're we're trying to build. It'll be probably next year, till it's launched, cause it's not cheap, but we can see.
Speaker 2:Okay, you were this, you were this, you were this, you were this. We're going to put you in this group. You were this, this and this. We'll put you in that group and or cause.
Speaker 2:You have the ability to put your dish, your likes and dislikes, in the system. So she knows more, a little bit more, about you. You've seen so um it by knowing you and if you've been using it for a few weeks, she'll get to understand some of the things that you're you're maybe are lacking. You know we're building in these videos, right? So then if there's a skill that you're missing, like resilience, we'll be pushing you to take a resilience course. But on the other side is your big soccer player. You know, you played all through the military and now you don't have a group, and so we're going to push you part of a affinity group for soccer players and then the next phase would be okay, they're Phoenix soccer players, so everybody you know is based out of Phoenix and there's an app that we, the foundation, partnered with called the Phoenix app.
Speaker 2:That was traditionally for sober, for sobriety, but we're now a part of it. We're the first veteran gaming org in there, and so the idea is you, we put together local chapters where you, instead of getting together online, we get together in person. So there's there's vehicles that we're working to try to get prevent you from getting to the point where you have your gun in your hand, right, because once you get that, it's very difficult. But if we could prevent you from getting there, because we're providing you a safe space, really helping you build the skills that you may be lacking most likely coping skills and then connecting with a community of like-minded people, we're hoping you're not going to get to that point where we, what we're looking at, we're trying to stay left of that and kind of figure out how can we fix what's going on or not, but how do we improve what you're dealing with and how you're dealing with it? So then we don't come to that outcome.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. You brought up a great point the community aspect. We tend to focus, like I said earlier, on the crisis intervention, like the veteran that's on the phone on the line about to do something very drastic. We have to understand like there's a whole bunch of other parts and pieces to go into this that can keep you from being there, and one of the big ones is that connection, human connection. The app is great to get you to talk and divulge when you're not comfortable, when you're not ready to be vulnerable with a human, but at some point we have to get you, the human being, connected with other human beings in order to get to thrive again.
Speaker 1:And that's a huge piece that I'm excited about, seeing how that's going to look on the app, seeing those prompts of pushing you towards that live event, pushing you towards the screen messages that are going to tell you like, hey, you've got a soccer tournament next week with your group. Because in reality, all these interventions are great, all these things that we learn and can coach ourselves through whether it's a breathing exercise or learning about mindfulness and meditation, wonderful. But the things that are going to keep us alive in the long run are the connections to our community and the people in our lives. And no psychologist can do that for you, no mental health professional can do that for you. Only you can do that. How do we build that and promote that in the app?
Speaker 2:And that's I mean. You know, this whole thing about affinity groups was Sherry's idea right, because she's really the smart one, and so you know it's. And I knew connection right. That's why I started the foundation, right? It's that connection piece. And when people say, well, ai is going to replace people, no, it's not. You need connection.
Speaker 1:You need human interaction.
Speaker 2:What AI is going to do is the person that knows ai will will replace the person that doesn't know ai. That's where what I always say is ai is not going to take your job. The person that is proficient in ai will be 100 taking your job. So you know, that's, that's the vehicle. So if we could be that again, that bridge right. So instead of maybe instead of a therapist, this time it's a group of like-minded people, it's a connection, it's it's building that. So that's really what we're really focused on again, probably for next year, because this takes a lot of money to build it. But we really want to be able to identify your you know your, what you're liking, maybe what you dislike, and try to help find that connection piece. And maybe this is where we partner with that other group to, you know, cause they've got they've got 50,000 people already on their app and so it's all right, go, go. You, you're a soccer player in Chicago, go to this soccer group. It's, you know we're not associated with them, but it's people and you play every Thursday and it's soccer and you know, I know you love soccer.
Speaker 2:So we're really trying to figure out ways that we could connect people in person and it's most likely going to be through partnerships with nonprofits like Warrior, gamer and other nonprofits, or apps like the Phoenix app, where you know they've got you know chapters, live chapters all over the country. So it's definitely I think it's needed, it's important, and just being an AI app is not the solution. We have to be whole health and we've got a thing that we're going to push, probably next year, is like this whole health thing, because it's, you know, it starts with us. Right, we could be, we could help, but you there's not. There's more to it than that, like connecting wearables we want to be able to connect with. I was just going to bring that up.
Speaker 1:I was going to say you know, I've got this apple watch and it is great and we know we were talked about the um, just brain sorry, brain fog is real. We just talked about the headspace app and how great it is being able to to take this ai and have it integrate in the rest of your life and the rest of your devices. I know I'm hearing all the gripes already from people that we need to disconnect from all these apps and devices. Well, that's great for you, but some people enjoy them, some people love them.
Speaker 1:And if we can integrate Elana into every device, in your Alexa, into your Kindle, to help you stay on track, one of the biggest things that I realized that helps people is positive psychology, gratitude, habit tracking, having it tied to ensure and just be your honest broker of hey, did you journal, did you do your gratitude list? These little reminders. They're powerful and they serve to be part of the larger ecosystem of what this AI model could be one day. And let's talk about that right now. If we just pause and daydream a little bit into the near future, where do you see this app developing into? How do you see it being part of our everyday life, if we download it, if we have it with us.
Speaker 2:What do you hope it grows into? You're a sidekick. You're there 24-7. I'm having a crappy day here. My girlfriend is, you know, and and then again the two o'clock in the morning thing is is fine, but that's very hopefully. It's rare. Less and less so it's it's. It's your vehicle.
Speaker 2:You know we have that dashboard which you see. We want to build that dashboard out even more so if you're you're wearing a whoop or you're wearing an aura ring or sleep is off, we could track physiological data, put that into our assessment. As you're talking to me, alana, I've noticed the last couple of weeks your sleep is off, or your stress is high, or your HRV is low. What's going on? And then we're adding that journaling component to it and so we're bringing on a mindfulness lady. So she's going to help bring us into there. Obviously, you know we have the breathing area and Ned has been testing it and the journaling is actually pretty good already, even though we haven't really fully built it out.
Speaker 2:So I envision this buddy, your sidekick, your battle buddy, your wingman, that you're using it every day. You wake up, just I had a great sleep or I had a crappy sleep. Hey, just go see how the day is, and then at night, you check in. So just something that you're using it every day and it's your friend, but it's also your, your, your coach when you need a coach and your advocate when you need a little bit push, and so that's. We're adding goal setting in there. Right, I want to run a marathon. I want to, you know, be a better reader. I want to learn Spanish. I want to get a pay raise. I want to go from an E8 to an E9, you know, whatever that is, we want to be able to help you on that journey and you're we're your support system.
Speaker 1:I love that. That's exactly the things that I was envisioning it's. It'd be too easy to keep pushing and make it, like I said, part of your everyday life. It's on your phones, on your smartwatch. You interact with it. On your desktop it pops up, just like grammarly, when you're writing. It lets you know like, hey, you're pretty stressed out right now. Go outside, take a walk. Yeah, the amount of times my loop has let me know walking your step went from 10,000 to 500.
Speaker 2:Let's get you out there, yes absolutely all that data yeah, the, the amount of like.
Speaker 1:I've noticed it. When I'm more mindful and I'm looking at, like it knows it, the. You know being in a high stress environment, whether you're an entrepreneur or in sales, whatever it is that you're doing, you can start getting to the point where you're you're breathing rate and being at, you know, elevated moments of anxiety and stress Like it can become your new normal. It doesn't have to be like you need to be mindful of those prompts and when it pops up on your phone, it pops up on your watch. That helps you out a lot. It helps you realize like okay, I don't need to be distressed out, it is nine o'clock in the morning. I need to take a step back.
Speaker 1:I need to look at my schedule and realize that none of this is really that important and I need to ground myself Like it is vital to have these resources in the hands of everyday people that don't have the tools, don't have the years of going to a practitioner yet. I think this is a great resource to be able to put in people's hands. When we look at funding, is there any way that people can contribute or is there a kickstart or anything like that in the near future?
Speaker 2:So we haven't gone that route. We're more like going after investors and invest. You know venture capitalists and all that kind of stuff. So that's we really haven't tried to crowdfund. I've heard various stories on that, so I've kind of stayed away from that area. So the way we're looking for funding is either through like angel investors or venture capitalists and or contracts. So if we get paid contracts which is why we're talking to like companies we want companies to employ us. Right, amazon's, the companies that employ large amounts of veterans, we think they should be employing us. The DOD, the VA, you know, partnering with some nonprofits that offer these types of services and then using grants to fund it. So those are the ways that we're looking to get funded is on the investment side, it's really, you know, investors, whether that's angel investors or venture capitalists. And then on the revenue side, it's it's going after government contracts, commercial contracts and partnering with different orgs to be an offering onto their system. So that that's really the ways that we've been going to market and that we're continuing to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a. It's a primary reason to go to the the soft week right there. There's a lot of big fish out there.
Speaker 2:Great network. It was a great. You know, the first day and a half I went there I knew nobody, right. I'm not from this we. We deal with a lot of soft and like I know, but I'm not, I've never in soft, I don't know, you know. So I just know what I've been told by all the stories and so I didn't know a lot of people there.
Speaker 2:So the first day and a half I was there, I was just trying to meet people and then, um, we just um, onboarded, um, uh, three star. His name is Eric Peterson, he was in soft and so he was a night stalker for almost two decades and then he left and so he was introducing me to a bunch of people and so I met, you know, over a dozen really good people from him and him just bringing me around and introducing people. I went to their party, their private party, and, you know, met a bunch of people at that event and so that was a really. So I'll be back next year for sure. And you know I stopped by try to see if you were there and the you know the I'm wearing task force, uh, or uh, yeah, so I'm, you know, got some swag there met some really amazing people, and I'm definitely excited to go back next year.
Speaker 2:But yeah, it's all about the networking and the meeting people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a great event for that, and there's tons of important individuals that really need to get spun up on this because that'd be ideally, that'd be a great target audience. Honestly, talk about individuals that are very hesitant to get in a therapist's room.
Speaker 2:We're trying to start with soft. That's like our initial market is soft because that's the tip of the spear and we want to go after that community. So that is actually what we're we're going after.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it makes sense. It's definitely a community that can utilize the resource and will utilize it because, like I said, a lot of people don't want to. You know they want to keep everything in. They don't, they want to be remain private to a fault, but if they have something they can utilize just a vent, just to throw some stuff out there and, at the very least, when they're ready, they can go directly to the source and get it in their phone.
Speaker 1:Josh, I can't thank you enough for being here today and for having me on your team to talk about this stuff as it applies to veterans, because it's incredibly, incredibly, incredibly honored to be a part of that, if I can contribute in any way, shape or form, to this fight in any avenue because, like I said, there's always going to be people that are very, very much against it.
Speaker 1:But, like we talked about earlier, there's a lot of us that grew up and have been using AI chat models for a long time. Shout out to you, craig and Discord for recording the first three seasons of this podcast, because that's what I utilized. I used Discord and Craig was a chat bot that recorded the podcast for us, so very much used to using AI models to help me through my day-to-day life. And if you're out there and you'd like to know more, hit me up and we can appoint you to Josh, and I'm sure he could utilize more input in this space. Josh, if people want to connect with you and want to find out more about Elana, how can they get a hold of you?
Speaker 2:So first, thank you for the opportunity to be on here. Really appreciate it. It was an honor and I'm grateful to be a guest. So LinkedIn I'm very active on LinkedIn. So Josh Otero on LinkedIn, and then Josh at Ilanaai. So it's E-L-A-N-A-H. My daughter's name, so that's why I spelled unique, so you could either email me or just hit me up on LinkedIn.
Speaker 1:Perfect Everybody right now. Please do me a favor, go ahead and pause. Go to episode description. Check out those links. Send Josh a LinkedIn invite, connect with him, ask him anything If not about AI, about transition, how he got in this space, because I know there's a lot of you out there that are curious about how to get into this, and I know that he'll react. I know he'll send you an email. I mean, we connected and I'm nobody special. Truly a pleasure to have you on here today, josh.
Speaker 1:I am absolutely proud of seeing everybody that you're engaging with and how open you are to just not only discussing it, coming on the podcast, but hearing every little bit of input. That's something that I was really, really happy to see, because a lot of times, people want to bring you in to check out their stuff and they're like I don't want to hear the good stuff. It's like, no, you got to hear all the good and the bad. So I know this is going to be successful. I know it's going to save lives Absolutely thrilled. So please, if you're listening, go out to all those links, check them out, leave us a review, a like, a share, a follow on YouTube, and we'll see you all next time. Until then, take care, thank you.
Speaker 1:Thanks for tuning in and don't forget to like, follow, share, subscribe and review us on your favorite podcast platform. If you want to support us, head on over to buymeacoffeecom forward slash set call podcast and buy us a coffee. Connect with us on Instagram X or TikTok and share your thoughts or questions about today's episode. You can also visit securityhawkcom for exclusive content, resources and updates. And remember we get through this together. If you're still listening the episode's over. Yeah, there's no more Tune in tomorrow or next week, thank you.
