The man who wants South Africa to feel better

Alon Lits, the former Managing Director of Uber in Sub-Saharan Africa, is giving new direction to the digital market with a mental health support app named Panda.

“The regulations governing transportation are often outdated – they predate smartphones. It was never envisioned a world where you can use a smartphone to push a button and get a car – regulations are lagging behind in innovation.

If you’ve been following the changing economy of concerts in South Africa, it’s hard not to have come across the name Alon Lits.

Uber’s first Managing Director and General Manager in Sub-Saharan Africa, Lits joined the multinational mobility services provider in its early years of expansion, and is now bringing its expertise and skills to a new venture to tackle healthcare. mental via an app called Panda.

Lits eloquently describes his professional career, which began with his tertiary training in actuarial science, before moving into venture capital after obtaining an MBA. No matter how difficult the job, Lits found himself seeking to pursue a greater passion after working with V-Prime Investments, which focused on microinsurance opportunities.

Beds was approached by Uber to take over the Southern Africa branch in 2013, at a time when Uber’s innovation was being recognized globally – making United States today‘s Tech Company of the Year – but still a long way from the transportation conglomerate we know today.

Beds reported directly to then-CEO Ryan Graves with one goal: growth.

“During my first six months with the company, he [Graves] just told me, he wants us to make 2,000 trips per week in Johannesburg… but the growth that we have seen, at our peaks, we have had millions of passengers and over 60,000 drivers using the app… You can imagine the scale we had across the continent… ”says Lits.

There is valid controversy surrounding the spread of the so-called “jitter economy model” and Lits talks about the fact that in South Africa the old way of giving people jobs is not working.

“We need new, innovative ways to provide people with income opportunities,” says Lits, while acknowledging both the flexibility offered by working on stage and some of its risks, as well as the actions taken by companies. such as Uber to mitigate them, but this legislation must also play its role.

“The regulations governing transportation are often outdated – they predate smartphones. It was never envisioned a world where you can use a smartphone to push a button and get a car – regulations are lagging behind in innovation.

Innovation is where Beds thrives, bringing its experience of distributed labor markets and data analytics to initiatives like Aura, which delivers on-demand emergency service responses across the country. and begins to expand into international markets.

However, it is Beds’s latest project, the Panda app, that gives it the most enthusiasm, bringing the same expertise and data to the mental health space. Together with his co-founder and partner Allan Sweidan, who previously co-founded and led the Akeso mental hospital group, he aims through Panda to help some of the 80% of South Africans who do not have easy access to services. mental health.

“My wife is a clinical psychologist,” says Lits, “My mom is a social worker… so I’ve always been surrounded by experts in the field and I have a huge inner admiration for the work they do, the impact they have in this world. Panda presented this unique opportunity to try and do something in space.

Panda does this through specialist and community mental health support – users can interact with others facing similar challenges, which focus on specific loci such as depression, anxiety, financial stressors, among other categories.

“My wife is a clinical psychologist. My mom is a social worker… so I have always been surrounded by experts in the field and I have a huge inner admiration for the work they do, the impact they have in this world. Panda presented this unique opportunity to try and do something in space.

Direct access to validated scientific tools through the app also allows users to monitor their mental health and well-being over time, allowing users to track their progress and development. More importantly, the app also allows direct access to chat sessions with verified mental health professionals.

“… There is definitely a market place first and foremost with Panda… So that’s where I think the Uber experience becomes relevant. We have therefore entered into a contract with various mental health professionals who will organize sessions every day from 10 am to 10 pm, ”says Lits. The app has been “smoothly launched” as free, but will seek to pay for some features from 2022.

Integrating data analytics into the mental health support space seems a natural progression for Lits, and Panda looks set to expand while providing valuable support to South Africans who are in desperate need of help.

“We’re really trying to make mental health care and support more accessible by leveraging technology… to get real-time data and to inform decision-making. How can we leverage the data to make sure that there is someone who is dealing with anxiety, who has gone to a particular session with a particular expert, and has been helped and started to feel better after that? ? ”

From the ridesharing business to technology to raise awareness about such a critical topic in a pandemic world, the journey has begun.