Aneela Idnani is Co-Founder & Marketing/Design Lead at Minneapolis-based HabitAware. HabitAware is a mental health tech startup and TIME Magazine Best Invention. HabitAware’s flagship product, Keen, is a patented smart bracelet that uses patented gesture detection technology to bring awareness to - and control over - hair pulling, skin picking and nail biting, issues that negatively impact more than 20M Americans. HabitAware holds SBIR research grants from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.
Having grown up with hair pulling disorder (trichotillomania), Aneela is now an outspoken mental health advocate, raising awareness of these very common yet unknown conditions. Aneela is a first generation South Asian American, an author, TEDx speaker, and a "40 Under 40" leader named by the Minneapolis St. Paul Business Journal. Aneela also serves on the advisory boards of LaunchMN, We Dance for Change and The International Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Foundation (IOCDF) Twin Cities Chapter. As a native New York, Aneela proudly calls Minneapolis home and spends her free time creating art and playing with her two young kids. She credits the support of the Twin Cities tech community as critical to the creation and growth of HabitAware and looks forward to supporting new tech entrepreneurs through her role on the BETA board.
BETA was founded in 2013 by Reed Robinson, Ryan Broshar, and Justin Cox with a simple vision—to celebrate the efforts of local tech founders. We hosted our first event—the BETA Showcase—in January, 2014. We found a venue, invited the active startups in our network, and convinced 200+ of our closest friends to see what our startup community is all about.
Though the organization has expanded into a variety of offerings, the mission has never changed—BETA brings people together to support and celebrate the efforts of Minnesota-based entrepreneurs. We do that to increase the likelihood of their success, and to inspire others to join in the action.
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The Beta Group (BETA) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization providing Minnesota's technology startup founders the resources + relationships required to scale their companies.
Office Hours: 10 am - 4 pm, Mon-Thurs
