About Us
The Backstory
In the late 1980s, HopeLab founder Pam Omidyar spent her days as a research assistant in an immunology lab. At night, after hours watching malignant cancer cells multiply under a microscope, she unwound by playing video games with her husband, Pierre Omidyar, the software engineer who went on to found eBay. As a scientist and game enthusiast, Pam began to wonder if giving young cancer patients a chance to blast their cancer in a video game might actually improve their health. In 2001, Pam founded HopeLab to develop and test this concept, which led to our first product, Re-Mission.
The Big Idea
Today we’re working to harness the power and appeal of technology to improve kids’ health. Our work with Re-Mission demonstrated that specially designed technology can be both fun and effective in driving positive health behavior in young people.
Our nonprofit mission is to combine rigorous research with innovative solutions to improve the health and quality of life of young people with chronic illness. We work closely with young people to understand their needs and to incorporate their critical and ongoing input into our product development, and we are committed to the scientific study of our products to ensure that they are effective.
We focus our efforts on diseases in which there is significant unmet need among young people and where we believe there is potential for HopeLab to have great impact:
• Cancer
• Obesity
• Sickle cell disease
• Autism
• Major depressive disorder
Visit the Join Us page to learn more about HopeLab’s values and culture.