A Master’s thesis topic is available at the Centre for Digital Health Interventions.

CDHI Thesis Title: Designing Sustainable Business Models for Adaptive Digital Health Platforms: Balancing Scientific Discovery, Societal Impact, and Ethical Value Exchange

 

Overview

We are seeking a motivated Master’s student in business, health economics, innovation management, or digital strategy who is passionate about the intersection of AI, ethics, and mental health innovation. This project offers an opportunity to design a sustainable, ethically grounded business model for an evolving AI-driven mental health ecosystem.

 

Project Purpose & Vision

Digital health tools often struggle to remain both scientifically credible and economically viable. This project aims to design a multi-sided business model for the Gearshift Fellowship (GF) platform that measures and trains adaptability through serious games. GF generates interpretable adaptability markers that support both individual self-reflection and population-level insights into mental health. Built on mathematical algorithms and clinical theories that evolve with scientific progress, GF requires sustainable mechanisms for ongoing research, validation, and ethical data reuse without commodifying users or overpromising outcomes.

Project Goals

The thesis will explore how to align incentives among users, healthcare systems, research institutions, and policymakers to create a self-sustaining ecosystem that evolves with changing symptom trends (e.g., youth suicide, anxiety, and attention dysregulation). It will also examine how adaptive AI systems, which tailor feedback to users based on behavioral data, can enhance user agency responsibly while avoiding manipulation or therapeutic overreach. Lastly, the student will develop a concrete use case and assess market-entry strategies for scaling adaptive digital-health platforms like GF across clinical, corporate, and educational contexts. Key questions to address include:

1. How to sustain and scale GF as an evolving digital infrastructure without compromising ethics or science?
2. How can adaptive AI support agency without manipulation?
3. What funding and data-sharing models best sustain continuous discovery while protecting privacy and autonomy?
4. How can adaptability metrics be positioned as a public good that benefits multiple stakeholders while remaining financially viable?

This project will produce a blueprint for ethical and sustainable AI-driven mental health ecosystems, showing how scientific discovery, user empowerment, and societal benefit can coexist within a viable business model.

 

Key Tasks

The student will:

1. Map the multi-sided value ecosystem of adaptive digital health platforms (users, researchers, clinicians, insurers, policymakers, employers).
2. Develop sustainable business and funding models that align with value-based healthcare and open scientific collaboration.
3. Conceptually integrate ethical and agentic AI safeguards into these models by defining what adaptability markers should and should not infer, and which engagement “hooks” are ethically acceptable.
4. Evaluate how governance frameworks and incentive structures can maintain transparency, user trust, and scientific rigor as the platform evolves.

 

Data & Resources

The student will have access to:

• Conceptual and preliminary data from ongoing GF studies and strategic documentation.
• Mentoring on digital health economics, ethical AI, and business model innovation.
• The opportunity to contribute to a live multi-stakeholder design initiative within CDHI’s ecosystem.

 

Required Skills

• Background in health economics, innovation management, digital strategy, or health policy
• Interest in AI ethics, mental health innovation, and sustainable digital ecosystems
• Experience with business modeling tools (e.g., Business Model Canvas, system dynamics)
• Analytical mindset and openness to interdisciplinary collaboration

 

Supervision

Supervisors: Dr. Nadja Ging-Jehli, Adaptive Intelligence & Mental Health Mechanisms Core, Center for Digital Health Interventions (CDHI), ETH Zurich, University of St. Gallen, University of Zurich; Prof. Dr. Tobias Kowatsch, Center for Digital Health Interventions (CDHI), ETH Zurich, University of St. Gallen, University of Zurich

Contact

Nadja R. Ging-Jehli, PhD

Core Director of Adaptive Intelligence & Mental Health Mechanisms at the Centre for Digital Health Interventions, University of St. Gallen / ETH Zurich / University of Zurich

Independent Project Leader of Gearshift Fellowship

nadja@gingjehli.com

www.gingjehli.com