Innovation Story: KidzHack’s VIBES Platform
This is the story of “Wanda Eugene“
Every innovation begins with courage, and for the founders of KidzHack, that courage was sparked by the voices of their own children. When their kids began expressing anxiety and stress about life, these technologists and caregivers realized the youth behavioral health crisis wasn’t a distant issue, it was personal.
Across the U.S., school counselors face overwhelming caseloads. Burnout is rampant, nearly 60% of counselors leave their position within two years, costing schools thousands and leaving students without consistent support. Recognizing that the best way to help children is to empower those trained to guide them, the KidzHack team created VIBES, a behavioral health platform that helps overwhelmed counselors identify and respond to students in crisis earlier and more effectively.
VIBES transforms how schools detect, understand, and address student well-being. Students use youth-friendly daily check-ins to share their emotions and experiences, creating a safe digital space for self-expression. The platform then analyzes behavioral patterns, generating real-time visual insights that alert counselors to changes in mood, engagement, or potential distress. This system allows counselors to intervene proactively, rather than reactively all within a HIPAA-compliant, privacy-first environment.
Unlike competitors that treat behavioral health as a data or content problem, VIBES offers a holistic ecosystem approach, integrating early detection with relationship-centered engagement across counselors, parents, and administrators.
Since receiving a National Science Foundation Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant in 2021, the VIBES team has conducted over 100 customer interviews, built and piloted multiple prototypes, and expanded pilots to four schools under paid partnerships. VIBES is positioned to bring sustainable, measurable impact to schools nationwide.
The innovation is led by three accomplished Black women PhDs whose expertise spans engineering, affective computing, and human-centered design:
Dr. Wanda Eugene (CEO) – expert in culturally relevant technology design and human-centered for under-resourced populations
Dr. Shaundra Daily (CPO) – professor at Duke University, pioneering research in affective computing and emotional development technologies.
Dr. Christin Shelton (CTO) – specialist in Human-Robot Interaction, and data science ensuring intuitive, inclusive user experiences.
Together, this team embodies what it means to transform ideas into impact. Merging technical excellence, lived experience, and compassion to reimagine how schools care for every child’s emotional well-being.
VIBES isn’t just a product; it’s a movement to ensure that no student struggles unseen and no counselor supports them alone.
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