3-2-1 ! 2025 here we come!
2024 is just about wrapped up, and we're super excited about what we've achieved and the massive event we have planned to ignite in the first quarter of 2025. Here's what lit our fires in 2024.
2024 is just about wrapped up, and we're super excited about what we've achieved and the massive event we have planned to ignite in the first quarter of 2025. Here's what lit our fires in 2024. A big mihi to you and everyone who has supported our team and fanned our flames this year.
Youth Flourishing: Ember Innovations completed our very first challenge-led innovation project aimed at addressing the pressing issues faced by young people in North Auckland. Young people, community leaders, and service providers codesigned meaningful change that enhanced youth wellbeing and resilience. By prioritising lived experience and insights from rangatahi, our first challenge created practical, community-driven solutions that fostered connection and belonging for young people in the region.
Ember Innovations has proudly played a big role in the birth of HORIZON. Horizon is the first Digital Magazine for the Mental health, Addictions and Intellectual Disability sector in Aotearoa. With edition one successfully out the gate it is now the first source of features, news, op-eds, think pieces, views and resources on mental health and addiction issues in New Zealand.
We’re putting lived experience and mental health innovation at the centre of our research agenda. We’ve just completed another incredible funding call for research with our friends at the University of Auckland. This year we funded 4 more grants with a focus on lived experience and mental health innovation and celebrated the success of recipients from previous years.
Ember Innovations, in collaboration with NorthAble Matapuna Hauora and Te Hauora o Ngāpuhi, is leading a bold challenge-led innovation project to address critical gaps in the system between mental health and disability. Focused on the Mid-North region of Te Tai Tokerau, the project seeks to uncover and respond to the intergenerational effects of substance-exposed pregnancies, which have profound impacts on rangatahi, whānau, communities, and support systems. By bringing together lived experience, local expertise, and innovation, this collaboration aims to develop integrated solutions that break down silos, strengthen services, and empower communities to navigate these complex challenges with resilience and equity.
Ember Innovations and The King's Trust Aotearoa have set sail on a promising journey together to power up rangatahi innovation in mental health and wellbeing. Recognising the critical role young people play in shaping solutions for their own futures, this partnership aims to amplify youth-led initiatives that address mental health challenges with creativity, agency, entrepreneurship, and impact. By combining Ember Innovations' expertise in challenge-led, community-driven innovation with The King's Trust's dedication to empowering young entrepreneurs, the collaboration fosters opportunities for rangatahi to develop and scale ideas that promote resilience, connection, and flourishing.
So here's to 2025, and to avoid FOMO in your new year diary, be sure to register for Ignition25. Spaces are limited and this is your invitation to ignite the future of mental health innovation with Ember Innovations! Join us for a dynamic day of unconference magic, where conversations are shaped in real time by researchers, innovators, and changemakers. Dive into sharp insights from thought leaders driving innovation and social impact and come together in whakanuia to celebrate a remarkable milestone: Ember reaching $1 million in mental health innovation research. Come spark inspiration, connection, and action—together!
