Last week, AUK had the honor of welcoming distinguished guests to a panel discussion on the Mental Help Global initiative, launched in 2024 in partnership with American University Kyiv.
Mental Help Global (MHG) is a nonprofit AI-enabled platform that will help address the vast unmet need for mental help assistance in Ukraine. Empowering mental health access for Ukraine through innovative AI solutions, MHG bridges the gap in care to support those affected by war, trauma, and displacement. The platform is built on a large language model, free and accessible to all. In Ukraine, it is being realized with the support of General David Petraeus, American University Kyiv, and Arseniy Yatsenyuk's Open Ukraine Foundation.
Among the guest speakers of the panel discussion:
- David Petraeus, a former U.S. Army general, partner in the global investment firm KKR, chairman of the KKR Global Institute, and one of AUK donors
- Clara Kaluderovic, Co-Founder & CEO, Ex2; 3rd generation of SONIC Drive-In, a technology entrepreneur with Ukrainian roots
- Arseniy Yatsenyuk, a Ukrainian politician, economist and lawyer who served two terms as Prime Minister of Ukraine, the Chairman of the Kyiv Security Forum and Founder of Open Ukraine Foundation
- Dan Rice, the President of American University Kyiv
Opening the discussion panel General Petraeus stressed on the critical shortage of mental health professionals in Ukraine given the current wartime situation,
“Ukraine has only 0.7, less than one mental health professional for 100,000 citizens. In contrast, the United States and Germany each have 10 times that number from 100,000, and neither has sustained the trauma of having parts of their countries occupied by for 11 years, experience three years of the most terrible combat in Europe since World War 2.”
Clara Kaluderovic, one of the initiator of Mental Help Global, highlighted the current development of the initiative,
"Our large goals are to build an AI platform that'll be 24/7 free, accessible to anyone from the web or phone, computer, so that everyone can get mental health care assistance. With real evidence-backed approaches from amazing people at Harvard, Texas A&M, University of Texas at Austin, who have real expertise in PTSD, brain health and other aspects of trauma care, we're progressing quickly.
We've come a very long way quickly thanks to the partnerships, working with AUK and having amazing individuals that come along the way.”
AUK President Dan Rice thanked all the speakers for their joint efforts in implementing this significant project,
“We have just an incredible team here that has done an insurmountable task of launching university in the midst of the war. So I think we're ready to take this to the next level, and by doing things like this, to support the Ukrainian people above and beyond the educational side. It's really important, thank you”.