Pesky gNATs is designed and developed by Handaxe CIC, a not-for profit Community Interest Company founded by David Coyle and Gary O’Reilly. We believe technologies that support adolescent mental health interventions can make an important contribution to society. But only if they are widely available. 
 
Gary gave at talk at TEDx in which he spoke about Pesky gNATs and our vision for widely available technology. He asks how generous should we be with technology based mental health interventions? Is it possible to make them available at little or no cost, sharing not just our ideas, but also sharing technology that allows us to promote good mental health in children.
How to Contribute
Achieving our vision of widely available technology will require the good will and contributions of many people. If you would like to help us in developing or distributing Pesky gNATs please get in touch (info@peskygnats.com). We are open to help in many areas, including but not limited to the following:
  • Help us to distribute and increase the visibility and availability of the Pesky gNATs software.
  • Help us to create new version of the Pesky gNATs game and mobile app in other languages. 
  • Help us by creating new media and graphic content for our games and mobile app and for the Pesky gNATs website.
  • Developing new components for the game and app.
  • Helping us to design and extend out websites and online training programmes. 
  • Helping us to build a community of mental health professionals who can share experiences of the Pesky gNATs software.
  • Providing advice on legal matters related to the design and distribution of new technologies in the mental heath area. 


Acknowledgements

The development of Pesky gNats was supported by an SBRI Healthcare development contract. The Small Business Research Initiative for Healthcare (SBRI Healthcare) is an NHS England initiative, championed by the newly formed Academic Health Science Networks, who aim to promote UK economic growth whilst addressing unmet health needs and enhancing the take up of known best practice.

The game was developed in collaboration with Opposable Games, a Bristol based games development company. Development was also supported by the the Department of Psychology and School of Computer Science at University College Dublin, the Department of Computer Science at the University of Bristol, and eMEN Interegg NWE.