Silatha: Women’s Wellbeing - Interview with the developer of a fantastic app

Did you have any prior development or coding experience?

No, I have a corporate background and worked for many years in marketing, so quite far from coding. But we established a qualified team to take care of it.

What was the most challenging aspect of developing mobile app?

Making it as user-friendly and simple as possible. We have so much great stuff on the Silatha app, so we want to make sure that users can find what they are looking for. It’s important to help guide them to what they need the most.

_{Veroniek Vermeulen}

The interviewee, Veroniek Vermeulen, is the Founder of Silatha. She is an experienced and passionate entrepreneur who won’t be stopped by gender bias. Her personal life story has been her guide to building Silatha. She is "on a mission to create cultural transformations in the workplace so that women can unleash their full potential."

Name a few of your favorite apps and reason you love them.

I love all apps that make my life easier, like banking apps, NS travel app, Google Maps, Spotify, and Strava.
I wish there was a weather app that really predicts the weather forecast correctly.

How long have you been working on this app?

Since the beginning of 2021.

What need of the user did you have in mind when developing this app?

Give women a safe space to talk and be supported in their needs around the realities she is facing in life. These topics are often a taboo and not spoken about especially not in the workplace.

Think about menopause, PMS, post-natal depression, or fertility treatments. Having a safe space to be supported and empowered is very important, especially to create a psychologically safe space in the work environment.

In what way do you think your app is better than similar apps on the market? Please describe in detail what innovation you think you bring and what you are proud of in your app.

We believe that companies that invest in creating these environments will be the most sustainably successful. As part of creating a thriving environment, companies need to address the taboo topics of:

• Hormonal realities (menopause, PMS, pregnancy, etc)

• Multiple caregiving roles

• Managing biases

At Silatha we help companies create environments where these realities are understood and specific tools are offered, to help manage these realities.

We believe this is a part of a healthy company’s cultural transformation on the road to fully diverse and thriving teams.

Silatha is the only holistic approach focused on the specific women’s life cycles and the taboos around women's mental well-being in these periods in life.

Our pioneering program is designed to help forward-thinking companies, that care about their women and are passionate about attracting and retaining talent.

Our systematic approach to workplace well-being ensures you maximize effectiveness.

Silatha’s Culture Change Program is designed to:

• Drive awareness and openness of realities women face

• Build coping- and behavior-change strategies for the women affected

• Build in focused mentoring skills

• Work in sync with the natural inclinations of women

Which is unique in the app market.

What are your future plans and expected features of the coming new versions of this app?

We want to add more series with topics that can support women through life stages. On top, we want to add journals to guide her through these and more features that will help her to get the support she needs as quickly as possible.

Assuming new users of your app are reading this page. What do you want to ask them to do (contact you about X, Share the app, etc.)?

Please reach out if you believe this would be beneficial at your work. We can support you in the internal process, to convince your CEO, HR lead or D&I lead to apply Silatha to create an equitable workplace where women can fully thrive.