Bukhman Philanthropies has contributed over £2.2 million to create the UK’s largest dataset capturing thousands of youth voices and lived experiences.
Surgo Health, a public benefit corporation and leader in impact-driven data and public goods, today announced a partnership with Bukhman Philanthropies to launch NextGen Pulse. This first-of-its-kind UK initiative will capture young people’s lived experiences in rich, granular detail on an ongoing basis and at a national scale to drive more responsive, equitable mental health policy, practice, and impact.
Currently, mental health services are not reaching and are not working for young people. Today, one in five young people in England experience a mental health problem, yet many wait months or even years for care that does not always reflect their lived reality. Meeting their needs requires a deeper understanding of how they navigate daily life. Existing datasets show what is happening, but often miss the context needed to understand why. As adolescence unfolds amid rapid social, economic, and digital change, traditional surveys can be too slow or narrow to keep pace with lived experience.
Powered by safe generative AI grounded in behavioral science, NextGen Pulse will collect thousands of lived experiences to provide a continuous, nationwide view of youth wellbeing. This will support earlier, more effective, and more human-centered care.
From Data About Youth to Insight With Youth
NextGen Pulse is designed as a living, responsive dataset of youth voices, capturing near-real-time narratives from young people aged 13 to 24. Powered by Derin™, Surgo Health’s generative AI and behavioral science-backed interview platform, this initiative will transform thousands of conversations into actionable insights at speed and scale.
By combining the breadth of surveys with the depth of interviews, NextGen Pulse will help partners understand not just what young people are experiencing, but how they interpret and navigate a rapidly changing world. This includes the impact of economic insecurity, digital life, identity, belonging, and global events.
“This partnership is about building a public good that listens first. By combining lived experience with advanced analytics, NextGen Pulse helps ensure youth wellbeing efforts are grounded in reality and built for impact,” said Dr. Sema Sgaier, CEO of Surgo Health.
“Bukhman Philanthropies is proud to support an initiative built on partnership and grounded in lived experience,” said Daria Bukhman, Co-Founder and Chair of Bukhman Philanthropies. “NextGen Pulse complements the wider youth wellbeing ecosystem and our other investments, while representing a new model for understanding youth wellbeing that is faster, fairer, and shaped by young people themselves.
”Built in close collaboration with partners, NextGen Pulse is designed to address the real data gaps organizations face. Partners will help shape the research questions, ensuring findings can be applied directly to strengthen programs, services, and policy. The initiative will complement existing efforts by providing timely insights that enable partners to adapt, test assumptions, and increase impact.
Impact will flow through strategic partnerships and a public good model that will make insights accessible across the ecosystem. An AI-powered NextGen Query tool and Insights Hub will allow decision-makers to get evidence-based answers in near real time, reducing the distance between insight and action. NextGen Pulse will begin rolling out with partners across the UK this year.