Dr Mariana Pinto da Costa is a Consultant Psychiatrist at East London NHS Foundation Trust, a Doctoral Research Fellow at Queen Mary University of London, and a Lecturer at the Biomedical Sciences Abel Salazar Institute at the University of Porto. She is enthusiastic in making the most of technology to connect people across the world. In her current research, she has been exploring views of different stakeholders (mental health professionals, volunteers and patients) about the potential of social relationships between people with psychosis and volunteers in Europe (Portugal, Belgium and the United Kingdom), in different languages (Portuguese, French and English) and through different formats (face-to-face or digitally). She has developed a new digital volunteering intervention - the Phone Pal - that enables the connection of patients and volunteers remotely through smart-phones.