Münster and Vienna Alumni’s AI Boosts Employee Wellbeing

Students From Stanford, Muenster, and Wien Universities To Develop World’s First System to Support IT Employees’ Well-being

TalentService will implement a new system to help management identify business problems and conflicts and analyze employees’ social conditions without invading their privacy

June 3, 2022, San Francisco, CA – The Future Talents team – a joint project of the University of Münster, Stanford University, and the Technical University of Vienna in partnership with SAP University Alliances – presented the world’s first data-driven system, Yoi, aimed at optimizing corporate well-being among IT professionals yesterday at the Stanford Design Experience Fair 2022.

A YoiBand wristband, a user-friendly interactive YoiDashboard, and a YoiAlgorithm together form an assessment system that collects and displays employees’ wellness information calculated upon their individual stress levels.

When the stress level increases, the system suggests customized relaxation activities, such as yoga, meditation, swimming, etc., based on the results of a pre-survey conducted among the employees. Gamification will encourage users to do activities through earning badges (bronzes, silvers, golds, platinum, etc.) and peer competitions. In addition, motivation is also fostered through social programs such as “1 yoga class = 1 tree planted / ten dollars to a charitable foundation”.

The system will help IT employees to improve their mental well-being and become more active, as well as allow companies’ management to identify business problems and tensions at the earliest stage, and assess the actual social condition of different departments. All metrics will be aggregated without violating privacy policies, like “average stress levels per department or branch”. 

The project aims to join an accelerator program in June and fully launch the startup in July 2022. TalentService along with other partners are planning to implement the system in their companies starting from August 2022.

“The mental well-being of employees is integral to their professional success as well as the success of their company. Employees who believe their employers won’t care about their wellbeing are twice as likely to look for other employment. This negatively affects employee retention and creates a toxic workplace culture,” says Pavel Podkorytov, founder of TalentService.com. “We will strongly recommend all employers registered on our platform to use the YoiAlgorithm for employees’ wellness assessment.”

Victor Taratukhin, Regional Director of SAP University Alliances for Silicon Valley and US West, said: “I am very proud of our students, they did a fantastic job. They achieved such high results in just nine months as a result of their hard work and the support from three of the strongest universities. In the future, I hope to see this product implemented and used in a wide range of companies concerned about the mental well-being of their employees”.

In 2026, the global corporate health market is expected to reach $87.3 billion. Most wellness approaches adopted by firms are narrow in scope and external to the work itself, such as standardized diet plans, forced exercise regimens, etc. HR leaders say 47% of workers do not feel the impact of workplace wellness programs in their organizations, according to SHRM data. 

11% of job applicants (8.6 million people in the US) are having difficulty finding employment due to mental well-being problems and only two talents out of 27 get hired when changing jobs.

About Future Talents

Future Talents project was founded in 2021 by graduates from University of Münster, Stanford University, and the Technical University of Vienna, with the support of SAP, in order to address the worldwide shortage of IT professionals.

The first successful outcome of the project was the creation of TalentService.com – a revolutionary reverse recruitment platform for IT specialists where talents evaluate employers. In just 5 months after its launch in January 2022 more than 15,000 IT professionals from around the world have joined the platform.