Our Story
I've always lived with the philosophy that the future doesn't just happen to us—it has to be made by us. Ideally, by those who know how difficult it is to live in the present.
I say all this after 3 years as an informal caregiver to a loved one with serious mental illness. I was a freshman starting Yale's biomedical engineering program when they experienced their first episode of psychosis. To say the experience shaped my trajectory would be an understatement. Studying these illnesses and navigating this broken healthcare system has become my entire reality.
I'm Shomari, and before I was an engineer or a founder, I was a caregiver.
For a while, I searched for answers and support where I could. I scrambled through hundreds of research papers at my disposal and spoke to as many experts as possible. I even taught myself to code from scratch and learned NLP to run my own thesis study on AI enabled speech-based relapse prediction.
Over time, it became very clear to me that there were no answers to be found in our health system’s crisis model—especially for those with serious psychiatric conditions. In this model, the burden falls on informal caregivers to prevent the single most costly events in behavioral healthcare—traumatic ER visits and inpatient stays.
In serious mental illness care, families are actively involved in 75% of cases. Yet, I and 13 million caregivers are given barely any tools to support it all. Relatives are best positioned to prevent relapse, but are ridiculously overburdened and have a hard time making sense of the chaos.
That's why I'm building Kairos, a platform that enables families to monitor behavioral changes over time, organize mental health info, and easily share the critical info needed to inform care.We believe that by unburdening caregivers, we can improve outcomes at scale. Kairos is here to help families act at the opportune moment, not a second later.
Thank you to the incredible people who've helped shape Kairos thus far. And if this resonates with any caregivers, industry experts, colleagues, friends, or others please reach out! We need more people interested in building the future, not just watching it unfold.
Warmly,
Shomari Smith
Caregiver, Founder & CEO @Kairos
