Makers of The Metaverse: Afsana Akhter Of Amelia Virtual Care On The Future Of The VR, AR & Mixed Reality Industries
An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
Passion — in any new, trailblazing area or industry, where you are fighting against the status quo, it takes extraordinary passion and perseverance to evangelize a new approach or solution.
The Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality & Mixed Reality Industries are so exciting. What is coming around the corner? How will these improve our lives? What are the concerns we should keep an eye out for? Aside from entertainment, how can VR or AR help work or other parts of life? To address this, we had the pleasure of interviewing Afsana Akhter, CEO of Amelia Virtual Care. With 20+ years of experience across Tech and Digital Health, Afsana Akhter is driving the expansion and adoption of Amelia Virtual Care’s VR platform for mental healthcare. Afsana has held commercial leadership roles at Livongo, Prealize Health, and Medullan. Afsana holds BS and MEng degrees in E.E.C.S. from MIT.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you tell us a bit about your backstory and how you grew up?
I am originally from Bangladesh and grew up living in both the US and Bangladesh. I really cherish this aspect of my childhood, being able to live in both cultures immersively. Also, moving continents five times in 18 years gave me tremendous resilience, which has helped me throughout my life. I was a math and science kid. In fact, languages and humanities were very hard for me, so I attended MIT to study engineering. I had a great experience there, worked in Tech for six years and then transitioned to Healthcare in 2006, and have been in Digital Health ever since. I love working in this field because it allows me to apply all of my skills in tech, business, and startup growth, but mainly because it gives me a great sense of fulfillment in being able to help people in a fundamental way. I am especially passionate about projects and solutions that promote consumer empowerment in healthcare so that people can better manage their own health and have data and tools to make better decisions about their health. After college, I lived in the Boston area for 15 years. I then moved to Silicon Valley to work at Livongo — a great example of consumer empowerment as they enable people living with diabetes to better manage their own care. I love building and growing companies and take a very cross-functional and sales, market, and customer-driven approach. I was super excited to take the CEO role at Amelia Virtual Care — a company that lies at the intersection of mental health and the metaverse and has worked with over 2000 mental health professionals to bring the power of VR to mental health.
Is there a particular book, film, or podcast that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?
While I was in college, I read two books that had a profound impact on me. One was “how to win friends and influence people” by Dale Carnegie. It introduced me to the concept of emotional intelligence — a topic for which I have an endless appetite. The other was “think and grow rich” by Napoleon Hill. One summer, I had a particularly grueling internship, and I used to listen to it in the car every morning. It helped me get through and stay motivated — some great lessons in that book. Nowadays, I love watching Ted talks on all kinds of topics — my latest favorites have been talks by Brene Brown. Her talk on gratitude as the path to happiness and vulnerability really resonated with me. I also love reading about different personality frameworks such as DISC, Enneagram, and Entrepreneurial DNA. Listening to these audiobooks over and over again has allowed me to better understand myself and others.
Is there a particular story that inspired you to pursue a career in the X Reality industry? We’d love to hear it.
A few things inspired me to join Amelia Virtual Care — which uses VR to support mental well-being. First is that the need and demand for mental health have been unprecedented since COVID, and there is a huge unmet need given the shortage of therapists, the fact that so many people don’t have access to or insurance coverage for mental health, and the average wait-time for a therapist is months. Also, we know that so much of mental health services are delivered through remote sessions, and we need to find ways to make that experience better and more engaging for the user. I saw VR as a game-changer in how people can experience mental health treatment with their therapists. Also, there is compelling and long-standing evidence and scientific studies showing that VR increases adoption and adherence to treatment and can improve clinical outcomes, and people can see benefits sooner. The benefits of VR for mental health are so compelling both clinically as well as for the user experience. And then, when I got the demo — I was wowed, especially by how the platform can support anyone anywhere since all the parts are connected to the web, so it fully supports virtual care. I think VR as a new modality for delivering care in a more immersive and engaging way can have a huge positive impact in healthcare.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began this fascinating career?
The most exciting part of the journey is seeing people experience VR for the first time. It’s a wow experience, where people typically are surprised and shocked and utter profanity, but in a good way. I love to record people’s reactions and then send it to them. It’s like when you first get on a roller coaster or on an airplane or the first time you see a 3D movie. It’s fun to be able to give people an experience like that.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
I can share one of my most embarrassing work moments. I had just started my first job at a Tech company — Cisco systems. A few weeks into the job, the Iluvyou computer virus was spreading. My PC got infected and spammed all my contacts with the Iluveyou emails. It was very embarrassing. My manager at the time, instead of making me feel bad about it, brought me a printout of instructions on what to do. I was so grateful that he wasn’t upset with me and didn’t make me feel worse than I already felt. I learned from that experience that we all make mistakes, and a kind and helpful gesture can mean a lot at a time when someone feels exposed and vulnerable. That manager was Carty Castaldi, and I’m grateful to him for the many management lessons I learned from him.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
Growing up, I was fortunate to have very strong female role models. My maternal grandmother was a trailblazer. Though she married at age 15 in Bangladesh and had five children, she completed her medical education to become the first female OBGYN in her region and had a long career as a clinician and medical school professor. My mother was also an extraordinary role model as an accomplished Medical Doctor and global health expert, creating a huge impact at both a policy and grassroots level.
In my career, I have always had ambition and worked very hard, and delivered great results. However, that was not enough to get promoted. My first promotion at a tech startup was at first blocked by the CEO, but then thanks to the strong advocacy of my manager, the VP of sales, and my mentor, the VP of Engineering, I did eventually get promoted to build and lead a sales engineering team. Then, when I strived for my first C-level role, that also required the advocacy of a key board member. Along the way to my first CEO role, there were many glass ceilings and “no’s,” but I kept moving forward and kept working to create impact. I am deeply grateful to my mentors, supporters, and advocates who went out of their way and applied their social and political capital to open doors for me and advocate for me. I hope to keep doing the same for others. There will be a lot of “No’s” so the key is just to treat it like a road sign that you drive by and move on.
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?
I currently lead Amelia Virtual Care as CEO. We develop VR solutions that mental health professionals can use to help them effectively treat conditions such as anxiety, stress, phobias, and more. The use of VR in mental health has many benefits, including the ability to create personalized environments to simulate scenarios and triggers in a controlled manner and gradually expose people to them while training them on how to manage their emotions. The VR-based simulations make many types of exposure therapy possible, which would otherwise be very hard to create in real life, such as driving, flying, public speaking, crowds, tough family or work situations, and more. Also, VR-based therapy is shown to improve acceptance and adherence and improve clinical outcomes, so it’s readily accepted by the clinical community. By using the Amelia Virtual Care platform, not only can therapists can better support their patients, they can also scale their services, enabling more people to get the mental care that they need.
Looking ahead, we can bring ‘ready to use’ mental health therapies to the metaverse. Today, we offer these capabilities guided by a clinician. But in the future, we can serve people directly and anyone with any VR headset could have access to our programs, either in conjunction with a clinician or on their own, depending on the type of program. This can vastly increase access to care through a very exciting and immersive experience that people will really enjoy and want to experience. If we can make healthcare fun and exciting, then we won’t have to work so hard to convince people to get care.
Ok super. Thank you for all that. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview. The VR, AR and MR industries seem so exciting right now. What are the 3 things in particular that most excite you about the industry? Can you explain or give an example?
What excites me most about the XR industry is how quickly it is evolving along with all aspects — the hardware or VR headsets, the content, and user readiness to adopt. It will take all three of these to develop in lockstep for rapid adoption and value creation.
Next, I am excited at how applicable this is to so many aspects of Healthcare. It is already being used in medical training, in mental health, musculoskeletal care, and stroke rehab, just to name a few. The key hurdle that many solution providers will have to overcome is the regulatory hurdle to get effective VR-based therapies into the hands of people and clinicians and the reimbursement.
Also, the more integrated all these environments can be, the better. For example, If I am using XR for gaming, I’d love to have the mental health or other health environments available in that same ecosystem, so I can go from playing a game or from a stressful work session to a VR based relaxation program.
What are the 3 things that concern you about the VR, AR and MR industries? Can you explain? What can be done to address those concerns?
As with any kind of tech — too much of a good thing can end up being bad. As is the case with social media or gaming or any kind of device, too much use can lead to negative effects, both physically and emotionally, so responsible use is key, especially for children. I worry that moving so much of our existence to the Metaverse could exacerbate the isolation issues and lack of human interaction so many people are already suffering from. Also, with the next generation growing up with the metaverse, it is yet to be seen what impact it will have on them.
I think the key is education. It will be critical to educate children and adults alike on the potential risks of the technology and anything that is addictive in nature.
I think the entertainment aspects of VR, AR and MR are apparent. Can you share with our readers how these industries can help us at work?
With more people working remotely, creating work environments in the metaverse can bring back some of the realism of being in an office or shared space. Conferences could be in the metaverse without expensive and time-consuming travel. We can also bring a whole new dimension to client meetings and customer support. Companies can compete at a whole other level in creating client experiences in the metaverse.
Are there other ways that VR, AR and MR can improve our lives? Can you explain?
For those who suffer from loneliness, the metaverse could bring them a more realistic social network.
For education, content in the metaverse could be more engaging and effective at educating our youth. We are already starting to see virtual schools and institutions pop up in the metaverse.
The applications for healthcare are also very promising. I’d love it if my father, who is 82, could use VR to do brain exercises every day to help prevent cognitive decline. I’d love to use it for daily meditation and mindfulness practice. It would be great if anyone with a chronic condition could get support and education through XR tools and resources.
What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about working in your industry? Can you explain what you mean?
Some Myths about working in Digital health/ healthcare
- That you can show up from another industry and just apply functional skills and succeed in Digital Health. I see many VCs and Boards think they can just hire people with functional skills and not domain knowledge and throw them into Digital Health companies. It’s a risky bet. Healthcare is so complex and takes a lot of time to learn. It can easily take a year or two for someone to get enough domain knowledge unless the product offering is quite simple.
- That you must have reimbursement from the getgo to gain traction. While reimbursement definitely helps, it’s not required from the get-go. Buyers such as employers and health plans will often fund the solution prior to CPT-based reimbursement, as companies work their way towards reimbursement.
What are your “5 Things You Need To Create A Highly Successful Career In The VR, AR or MR Industries?”
- Passion — in any new, trailblazing area or industry, where you are fighting against the status quo, it takes extraordinary passion and perseverance to evangelize a new approach or solution.
- Must have very tangible value — as they say, if you can be a pain killer rather than a vitamin, meaning essential rather than optional to your buyer, that is key.
- Really solve those usability issues. VR has come a long way but has even further to go to become truly easy to use by all, there are still some kinks to sort out with the XR hardware and software. We have to be super focused on solving those and push all suppliers in the process to up their game in ease of use.
- Speed — the industry is moving very fast now, operating with speed is critical.
- Ecosystem and interoperability mindset. We all need to build this metaverse ecosystem through interoperability and not build closed hardware or systems. It is the key to a thriving ecosystem.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
There is still so much poverty in the world. With the amount of wealth that exists among the rich, it’s really unbearable to think of people still living in abject poverty. If every family with a household income over 200k would sponsor a poor child or family — that would help a lot and the direct connection would be meaningful, rather than just donating money into a fund and not knowing the human on the other end. This could make a big impact.
We are very blessed that very prominent leaders read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂
I’d love to meet w Satya Nadella. I am amazed by his leadership and the impact he has had on Microsoft in a short time. I admire how he applied the growth mindset paradigm to shift the company’s culture, which contributed to its renewed success, and also the lessons and experiences he has shared from his personal life.
Thank you so much for these excellent stories and insights. We wish you continued success on your great work!
Makers of The Metaverse: Afsana Akhter Of Amelia Virtual Care On The Future Of The VR, AR & Mixed… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
