Meet the 2024 Elevate Equity Cohort
Flywheel Social Enterprise Hub is pleased to announce the members of its 2024 cohort for Elevate Equity; Health and Wellness Equity Edition. This is the first time Flywheel has focused a cohort specifically on innovation in health and wellness equity.
All five entrepreneurs were selected for the novel approaches they bring to the issues that impact health equity and disparities. While all five businesses are based in Cincinnati, they have the potential to scale regionally, nationally, and beyond.
The selected entrepreneurs will participate in an 8-week accelerator offering training, coaching, connections to social capital, financial support, and other growth resources. Flywheel will invest a total of $30,000 in direct funding to the ventures as well as deliver a program valued at $10,000 per founder. In addition, Flywheel provides each venture with a team of coaches. Coach volunteers will provide approximately 180 hours of support, valued conservatively at $36,000.
Back Row: Cyrina Thomas, CHaSE| Brandon “Jide” Hill, In Fly We Trust | Milton Woody, CHase | Valda Freeman-Karmo, A.A.R.O.N | Candace Gasper, CHaSE
Front Row: Dr Calisha Brooks, SoulCare | Alicia Suguitan, Edith Institute | Shakeita Moore-Lilly, CHaSE.
The cohort members are:
SoulCare - Dr. Calisha Brooks, Dr. Iyanu Odebode, Lesa Moloi. A wellness App providing accessible, representative, and inclusive mental health and wellness self-care options, in a virtual community for people of color addressing race-based trauma.
In Fly We Trust - Brandon “Jide” Hill. A destigmatizing mental health resource that uses storytelling in the form of graphic novel coloring books infused with affirmations, reflective games, philosophy, and more to provide hope and inspiration to individuals recovering from trauma and loss.
A.A.R.O.N - Valda Freeman-Karmo. A wearable device for people with diagnosed mental illness that activates when stopped by police. The goal is to reduce hostile police/citizen encounters by providing information the officers need to approach with the appropriate sensitivity.
Edith Institute - Alicia Suguitan. A continuing education platform for healthcare professionals designed to improve health outcomes for pregnant women of color by addressing implicit bias in maternal healthcare.
CHaSE - Candace Gasper, Cyrina Thomas, Shakeita Moore-Lilly , Milton Woody. Mitigating the mental trauma caused by eviction and homelessness by preventing eviction with a platform that connects landlords and renters with resources to keep renters housed. This solution grew out of the 2024 Housing Stabilization Hackathon produced by Flywheel in partnership with Strategies to End Homelessness.
“This cohort brings such rich lived experience to the issue of health equity, “ said Laura Randall-Tepe, Executive Director of Flywheel. “Each has a novel approach to either preventing or treating trauma unique to racial bias or disabilities. Their success will be important to addressing health disparities in our community and beyond,”.
According to Randall-Tepe, the idea to focus on health and wellness equity came from the 2023 Elevate Equity applicant process where a number of the entrepreneurs were in the early stages of developing business in the health and wellness space. While they were not selected for the 2023 cohort, Flywheel provided resources and referrals to further develop their business models. Three of the five members of this cohort were previous applicants who returned with ideas that were significantly more developed and ready for accelerator training.
“I feel like I’m on The Voice and they told me to come back and I made it the second time,” said Dr. Calisha Brooks. In the past year, Dr. Brooks grew her business from an individual counseling model to a racial trauma-informed app that can be scaled far beyond the Cincinnati region.
The eight-week program begins March 11th and continues through May 2nd. Program Manager Samuel Baker will be leading the cohort for his first time with Flywheel. A time and location for the Elevate Equity Demo Day will be announced soon
Elevate Equity Health and Wellness Edition has two presenting sponsors, NECCO and The Johnson Foundation. "The foundation is so pleased to partner with Flywheel to assist this talented group of entrepreneurs in their work to address health and wellness equity in our community,” said Amy Goodwin, Executive Director of the Johnson Foundation.
Additional sponsors include First Financial. Flywheel’s 2024 program partners include The City of Cincinnati, The Greater Cincinnati Foundation, The P&G Alumni Foundation of the Greater Cincinnati Foundation, and the Carol Ann and Ralph V. Haile, Jr. Foundation.