This spring, I will be graduating from Brown with a degree in Public Health. I plan on taking one year off to pursue my venture before matriculating into Brown's medical school to continue the PLME. This past year has been one of evolving passions, narrowing interests, and exploring opportunities.

This past summer, I interned for Khushi Baby, a startup developing India's first comprehensive electronic health record system. As the Innovation Intern, I attended meetings with India's public health experts and used their input to lead a team of software engineers in the development of an app that was ultimately integrated into Khushi Baby’s larger digital health platform. Working directly under the CEO and CFO, I fell in love with the startup culture and learned how to lead a digital health company. I took this newfound knowledge and decided to develop my own venture.

COAD, which stands for Community Adherence, is a venture that incorporates a patient's support network into the medication reminder process to ultimately improve medication adherence—the percentage of time a patient takes their medication as prescribed/on time. Over the fall semester, I translated my idea into action and made significant progress in the venture-building process. Specifically, I performed 300 customer interviews, completed comprehensive bottom-up research, assembled a team, and built a prototype. This spring, our team will continue developing iterations of the MVP and start looking for funding. We are all extraordinarily excited!

I am incredibly humbled and grateful for the continued support and generosity of MVYouth. Thanks to their kindness, Brown University has become my incredible beginning. I am excited to see what comes next!