Rize has been supported by the Accelerate Cambridge programme at Cambridge Judge Business School, part of the School’s Entrepreneurship Centre.
The CER’s Internet Entrepreneurs Prize rewards excellence and innovation in digital and web-based ventures which help to improve lives. The prize focuses on the amount of good that a venture can achieve in the world.
Speaking on behalf of the CER, Franciska Goldschmidt-Kosman said:
The Rize app was chosen as the first prize candidate because it avails mental self-help tools to the masses. This is an unprecedented progressive step forward in the field of mental health techniques and we are delighted to recognise John Harper’s achievements.
Rize helps users to understand, track, and improve their mental well-being. The app can also help to manage stress and anxiety through a series of simple and engaging exercises which take five minutes per day.
Harper, who grew up in Cambridge, says his own experience of depression was the inspiration for Rize:
Rize came from humble beginnings – an idea that arose from my own experiences. There is still a lot to do, but we are now getting a lot of interest from clinicians and counsellors to develop new features and accommodate their own work in the app. Winning this generous award from the CER means that we can now afford to develop these new ideas.