THE creators of an app which looks for signs of mental burnout say they want to establish the world’s leading wellbeing technology company in Dorset.

People Matter was recently named one of the 10 Rising Stars of UK Tech at the Tech Nation awards, which received 300 applications from a potential 10,764 tech start-ups.

The Bournemouth-based company has created Okina, an app which employers and staff can use to monitor mental health.

Nigel Winship, who set up the business in partnership with Amy King, said: “We want to build the world’s leading wellbeing technology company and in doing so build the best technology business in Dorset. “

He added: “I had the idea for People Matter during 2017 and it basically came from all the data that, as individuals, we create. There’s lots of it every day.

“There’s a higher purpose it could be used for, rather than just trying to sell us something and monetise it.

“Amy had been giving a lot of thought to mental health and wellbeing and particularly burnout. We’ve taken Amy’s behavioural science background and knowledge of burnout and we’ve put that together with analysing the information we all give off every day.”

The app analyses signals such as the volume of a worker’s unprocessed emails or clashing calendar appointments. “It’s a little like Fitibt for mental health,” said Mr Winship.

“You might have 100 unread emails. If within one month that goes to 130 and then 150 that’s telling you something.

“Sometimes you don’t want to say something to your manager, or it’s difficult to articulate that you’ve felt really rotten over the last two weeks. With the app, if you want to share that information with your manager, you can highlight what’s happened over the last three months.

“If you aggregate that information, you can start to get a picture across the organisation.”

But he added: “We don’t think it’s something you can mandate people to use. It has to be something people opt into.”

The app has already impressed credit reporting company Experian. “We’re looking to roll out the app to Experian UK staff during this year,” said Mr Winship.

The business, based at THIS Workspace in the Daily Echo building, has six staff and aims to reach 20 by the end of this year.

“We are really committed to growing the headquarters in Bournemouth. I think this is a great place to work and it fits with our whole ethos and it’s a working environment where people can bring their best self to work every day,” Mr Winship added.

The company’s success at the Tech Nation Awards earns it a package of support worth more than £4,000, including work with a mentor, two tickets to a conference anywhere in the world, introductions to potential partners and investors and one-to-one mentoring with a member of the Microsoft Bing team.