SBIR Phase I: The Resilience Gym

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目的更广泛/商业影响是创建一个“弹性健身房”，在这里，职业生涯中期、受过大学教育的员工可以像在普通健身房锻炼身体健康一样，主动发展自己的情绪健康。当前的流行病和心理健康危机对社会产生了深远的影响。麦肯锡在2021年的一项调查中发现，85%的一线员工和管理人员在工作中找不到意义。美国劳工统计局报告称，2021年8月，430万人辞职，占总劳动力的2.9%。这些统计数据表明，迫切需要解决职场不满问题，并支持个人寻找生活的意义和目标。自2017年以来，该团队通过学习行为科学研究并将其应用于他们的生活，成功地教导了150多名成年学生发挥他们的潜力。这些学生中有超过50%的人，尽管事业有成，但对自己的生活不满意，并寻求更多的意义。该团队发现，对这些学生来说，采用一种赋权的心态是最有效的弹性行动，可以让他们取得更多成就，找到生活中更深层次的意义。弹性健身房使用技术提供可扩展的解决方案，以改善工作成年人的情绪健康和繁荣。该团队的创新是一种移动和网络应用程序订阅服务，它提供了一个循序渐进的弹性健身房过程，并指导用户采用新的、赋权的心态。该产品基于数十年的行为科学研究，并使用虚拟现实、人工智能和移动推动，为个人用户提供个性化的可扩展解决方案。基于实时进度，用户可能会采用新的思维方式。该团队还将纳入神经科学研究，以丰富解决方案。为了开发设计，团队使用了斯坦福设计学院的五步设计思维方法（移情、定义、构思、原型和测试），团队对此具有深厚的专业知识。该方法与敏捷方法相辅相成，具有简短的里程碑、scrum会议和待办事项跟踪，以确保新的学习可以适应用户，并在计划的预算范围内按时交付。该团队结合了科技初创公司和大学研究人员的专业知识，开发出科学驱动的产品，既取得了重大影响，又取得了商业成功。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader/commercial impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is the creation of a "Resilience Gym", where mid-career, college-educated employees can proactively develop their emotional health in the same way they do their physical health at a regular gym. The current pandemic and mental health crisis have affected society deeply. In a 2021 survey, McKinsey found that 85% of frontline employees and managers do not find meaning at work. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 4.3 million people, or 2.9% of the entire workforce, quit their jobs in August 2021. These statistics demonstrate the urgent need to address the issue of workplace dissatisfaction and support individuals in finding meaning and purpose in their lives. Since 2017, the team has successfully taught over 150 adult students to achieve their potential by studying behavioral science research and applying it to their lives. Over 50% of these students, despite having accomplished careers, are dissatisfied with their lives and seek more meaning. The team has found that adopting an empowering mindset is the most effective resilient action for these students to achieve more and find deeper meaning in life. The Resilience Gym uses technology to provide a scalable solution to improve the emotional health and prosperity of working adults.The team's innovation is a mobile and web app subscription service that delivers a step-by-step Resilience Gym process and guides users to adopt new, empowering mindsets. The product is based on decades of behavioral science research and uses virtual reality, artificial intelligence and mobile nudges to provide a scalable solution that is personalized the individual user. Based on real-time progress, users may adopt new mindsets. The team will also incorporate neuroscience research to enrich the solution. To develop the design, the team uses the 5-step Stanford d.school design thinking approach (empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test) for which the team has deep expertise. The approach is complimented with the agile methodology to have short milestones, scrum meetings, and backlog tracking to ensure new learnings can be adapted from users and delivered on schedule and within the planned budget. Combining the expertise of technology startups and university researchers, the team develops scientifically driven products that achieve both significant impact and commercial success.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.