Launchpad meet the teams: Ora

Catherine McCulloch and Jackson Wood of Ora at the Launchpad workshop. Photo / Supplied

This month Element readers decide on the 'People's Choice' from the 11 social enterprises in the Launchpad accelerator, thereby deciding who receives the $20,000 prize from Contact to help further their endeavours. Social enterprises are purpose-driven organisations that trade to deliver social or environmental impact. Click below to access the voting form, and click on each team's name to learn more.
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Ora

Rosie Bosworth: Short and sharp, let's start by describing in two sentences or less what Ora is and does. Go!

Jackson Wood: Ora is building a portable technology tool that allows people to assess their level of impairment and wellbeing in real time, so they are empowered to make better decisions around workplace health and safety.

RB:Who are the human brains behind Ora? What does the team bring to the table?

JW: Ora has four team members: I'm Ora's spokesperson and the one who makes things happen. My background is in communication, political strategy, social media and social and environmental causes. I have a knack for communicating and I've also been to space school - twice. Catherine McCullough is responsible for the research, science and policy side of Ora and has a background in health and justice policy. She's worked across a broad range of sectors including various prisons in NZ and abroad, and is always focused on making the world a better place. Sam Parkin is our developer analyst with a wide range of technical experience. He's responsible for product development and expanding Ora after our time with Launchpad. Sam has worked for a wide range of companies, from hedge funds to his own business. Lastly, Liam Tohill is our numbers guy responsible for corporate accounting. The financially focused brain of the team, Liam has worked in the finance and banking sectors in the UK and New Zealand.

RB: Describe the "aha" moment that bought Ora to Life.

JW: Two things really. Firstly, Catherine was routinely getting sick and generally feeling like sh*t. Eventually she was diagnosed with a neurological condition which meant she had been doing simple tasks, like driving, without seeing properly. A dangerous combo. If we'd been mapping her cognitive function we would have picked this up much earlier. Secondly, I had just left my job. Catherine and I were spitballing ideas about how we could make the world a better place. A story came on National Radio about how a guy had been in an accident. It seemed to us that he was just tired and stressed. We thought, why aren't we testing for that? Why couldn't we help everyone to have an inbuilt alarm to pick this stuff up before accidents occur?

RB: What gaps does Ora fill?

JW: We know fatigue and stress are leading causes of accidents. We're going to change that. Currently, only a handful of businesses worldwide are checking to see whether people are in the right cognitive state to be working on safety sensitive sites. There are number of factors which may impair their health and wellbeing, and testing is usually a time-consuming, individualised process or requires special equipment. Ora provides a common technology to test this across the board. Not only does it provide employers who operate in safety sensitive sectors a yardstick with which to judge whether their staff are going to be safe, it also gives employees in any high-stress job an insight into their own health and wellbeing.

RB: In a perfect world describe what Ora will look like 10 years from now? How will society have blossomed because of it?

JW: Within 10 years our product will be global and an international standard for companies who operate in safety sensitive sectors or those who focus on employee wellbeing. Impairment is the same on a forestry site in Ruatoki as it is in a factory in China. The stress of a deadline is the same in a big corporate in Auckland as it is for a multi-national in New York. Ora will be known as the tech behind global workplace health and safety.

Watch Te Radar's interview with Jackson Wood.

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