Radically kind: how Brave is helping to combat the overdose crisis with CEO & Founder Gordon Casey

 During the past few months, COVID has identified many vulnerable populations in our society, including demographics, business models and general frameworks that are at risk. But, how has it impacted people who were already underserved and in need? On this week’s episode of evolution, entrepreneurship@UBC’s Creative Specialist, MJ Araujo, speaks with Brave Coop Founder and CEO, Gordon Casey. Brave strives to center the voice of the person who uses drugs in everything they do, through a framework called Design Justice. Find out how COVID has impacted people who use drugs and how Brave’s remote supervision app, BeSafe, is helping to keep the community safe from accidental overdose. 

About Gordon Casey
A former lawyer and entrepreneur, Gordon Casey is the founder of Brave Coop. After his career in law and finance, Gordon moved to Vancouver determined to use technology to reveal that help is always nearby, as long as you can ask for it. He soon realized that the most pressing need for this kind of tech was in overdose prevention and response. He has been working in Vancouver’s downtown Eastside ever since.

About Brave Coop 

Brave is a multi-stakeholder cooperative, working out of Vancouver, BC, and Columbus, Ohio. Their sole focus is preventing overdose death. 

Their technology tools have been co-designed with people who use drugs, respond to overdose, and build community resilience in the face of the overdose epidemic. They are designed to connect people at risk of overdose with help they need: an ally they can talk to, a human supporter to help them stay safe, and digital monitoring technology to help them when they’re in danger by connecting them with a community of overdose responders, and professional emergency first responders.