At some point in our lives, we’ll all need to understand the importance of access to care.
For Anita Darden Gardyne, that moment has come through Onēva — a technology platform that connects FBI-background checked caregivers to people who need them.
“Learning that we were going to have baby boomers who would retire at some point in their lives was something that I became aware of at an early age,” said Gardyne in an interview with AfroTech. “The need for job creation for people who look like us is what Onēva is all about.”
As a tech czar, she has spent years working with companies like Microsoft and held leadership positions including roles as CFO at Quantum (Seagate). It’s these same roles that Gardyne says prepared her to own and operate her own technology company.
View this post on Instagram
“Those roles absolutely prepared me for many years,” she continued. It also equipped me with the knowledge of the audience for this corporate structure. They’re just like the larger companies that we work with today. Having had that corporate experience means that I’ve learned to maneuver and excel in that environment.”
Onēva may seem in line with other care platforms such as Care and Sitter, but one difference is that this company conducts the FBI-background checks at no additional cost to its users — something that Gardyne says you won’t get anywhere else.
The platform was birthed in 2015 from her own experience in providing care for her own mother.
“We actually built a care marketplace, the first care marketplace because it’s what my mother needs, it’s what your mother may need, and ultimately other families deserve access to safe, reliable care for their loved ones.”
In her research for care for her own mother, Gardyne learned that companies have no idea of the identity of the people that are housed on their care platforms.
“It’s just like going to Craigslist,” shared Gardyne.
Even further, she learned that users are tricked into paying for background checks on individuals that aren’t even real.
“Imagine knowing that you could call a 1-800 number and care line and know for a fact that the person providing care to your family is capable, reliable, and has gone through a real background check at no extra cost to you, that’s what we’re doing at Onēva,” she shared.
Since the launch of her platform, Gardyne has been recognized as a “Successful Entrepreneur” by the CA State Assembly in 2020 and was awarded a USPTO patent for “Creating Trust and Safety in the In-Home Care Market” in 2019.
A second patent for an AI video recording device is currently in process.
