by Terri Bernhardt
Our world has changed drastically in a year. A fast-paced world where we didn’t think twice about hopping on an airplane, attending a wedding or commuting to work. It was go, go, go! There wasn’t a concern about the scarcity of basic supplies or the next time we would see our loved ones in the hospital or a nursing home. In the midst of the chaos, our worlds slowed down a bit and we taught ourselves to adapt through life virtually. For the first time, we discovered that many jobs, classroom work, and supports could be done remotely and technology became everything to us.
Minds Untapped opened in its doors in 2017 with one vision: to leverage passion and technologies to help people find and use their untapped potential. For years we strategized with subject matter experts, placing individuals in proper roles and developed a plan to launch an app called Blue Hope. In January, our leadership team moved full steam ahead with the plan. When COVID-19 escalated, we didn’t stop. We met via video conferencing and tightened up our timeline. Some of us donated our time and spent our own money to push this vison forward. Why? We knew the importance of Blue Hope and the great need it will provide to the families, children and adults with autism. We knew that not having home supports, classroom resources and group gatherings would mean they would get so much out of this technology during a global pandemic and beyond.
We started developing the Blue Hope for autism app content in mid-April. In October we launched the live, free beta to the world. Blue Hope provides real solutions and opportunities to an underserved and under recognized society: children with autism and people who care for them. And the feedback from our beta launch has been overwhelmingly positive and powerful! But our story isn’t over. It is very much alive and it will not end until each and every person has the resources they need.
The aspect of preserving the human connection while taking advantage of technology fits right in with us at Minds Untapped. And we hope you enjoy the simple, interactive, real-time platform we have carefully developed. It is a work in progress and without feedback like yours, Blue Hope wouldn’t be as successful. We plan to develop more tools, more apps and more ways to reach other disabilities – and we are excited about that too. But Blue Hope will always be where we started our journey and we will always be very proud of how it came about.
Thank you for allowing us to share our story. Please take a look! BlueHope.FanHero.TV