Before taking a gap year to build an AI Therapist Chatbot, Remus Poon (潘睿恆) was pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Psychology and Language Sciences at University College London, while training full-time as a boxer representing the university. He was also the president and coach of UCL’s boxing club, which amassed over 400 members over his year. 

In the spring of 2023, Remus was accepted into Taiwan Mobile’s CEO and AppWorks’ Founder Jamie Lin’s gap year program. He was given a grant of 1 million dollars (NTD) to pursue a project that he felt passionate about. Remus has always felt strongly towards the subject of mental health. Having gone through a period of difficulty during his teenage years, he is familiar with the alarming shortage of accessible mental healthcare systems. This passion for mental health drove him to study psychology at university. 

Remus used the million-dollar grant to explore using LLMs to digitalise the therapy experience. Immersed in AppWorks’ environment and a pool of talented founders, he taught himself the necessary computer languages to create the web app that brought his idea to life. In less than 6 months, Calmi, the chatbot therapist, was born. Calmi is now available to use and currently undergoing beta-testing. 

During his downtime, Remus is an avid guitar player and enjoys home cooking.

Special thanks to Jamie and his blog for inspiring me to start my own.