My Health Story: Healthtech Powered by Lived Experience
Presented by My Health Story
DETAILS
Ticketed
Melbourne Connect (The Studio)
700 Swanston Street, Carlton VIC, Australia
This professionally facilitated Q&A event centres on My Health Story (MHS), a digital platform that enables people to organise, reflect on and communicate their health information across their care journey. MHS was born from lived experience: years of misdiagnosis, chronic pain and navigating fragmented healthcare systems revealed design failures that inspired a patient-centred solution.
Founder, artist and chronic pain advocate Soula Mantalvanos, and co-director, husband and carer Theo Mantalvanos, will share the origin story, the role of caregiving, and how their experiences shaped a platform that improves communication, reduces administrative burden and gives individuals more control over their care.
The Q&A session aims to explore healthcare as a design problem, demonstrating how putting individuals at the centre of their care improves access to information, enhances coordination and drives better outcomes.
Key themes include:
- behaviour change – at the individual, provider and system level.
- the potential to transform a fragmented system into one that works for people.
- real-world benefits for practitioners, including clearer patient histories, reduced duplication and more efficient consultations.
The project demonstrates how design thinking applied to lived experience can support a more connected healthcare system.
Gabriel Edwards will facilitate the discussion, offering insights for designers, healthcare professionals and investors interested in lived-experience-led healthtech that delivers measurable impact.
Audience participation is encouraged, with time for questions.
Ticket-holders are encouraged to email questions ahead of the Q&A session to [email protected].
Participants
Soula Mantalvanos
Soula Mantalvanos is an artist, designer, gallerist, and founder of the My Health Story project.Soula combines her years of living with and managing chronic pain and her professional creative communication experience to advocate for a better quality of care for individuals.Her consistent advocacy inspired My Health Story as a way to drive positive change across the healthcare system.In addition to presenting at medical conferences, Soula has self-published a book, appeared in an award-winning documentary and established the website pudendalnerve.com.au.Soula's most outstanding achievement is founding My Health Story, a way for patients to generate, store, and communicate their personal health experiences – on their terms.
Theo Mantalvanos
Joining Soula in presenting events for this project is her husband, Theo Mantalvanos. Together, Soula and Theo won Best Startup in the 2025 Runway HQ Incubator program in regional Victoria by pitching and presenting the design and development of My Health Story.After decades of sharing directorship of their Melbourne design company OOI: Creative Communication, the couple moved to regional Victoria seeking a necessary life change to better support and manage Soula’s ongoing chronic health condition.They founded Queenscliff Gallery in 2015 and are now celebrating ten years of representing professional artists across Australia.
Gabriel Edwards
Gabriel Edwards is the Managing Director of Engaging People Pty Ltd, a successful people strategy consultancy established in 2005. She is also a trained counsellor and the founder of EXECSupport™, a unique mental health & wellbeing service for health sector leaders across Australia, established in January 2017.Gabriel will be co-facilitating the My Health Story workshop with Soula and Theo and will lead key aspects of the event.