Viable Business/Entrepreneurship

Project Overview & Experience

I co-founded Memora in August 2024 with my peers, Saee Pangarkar and Naina Misra with the aim of improving the current state of dementia care technologies. We first focused on conducting interviews with dementia caregivers and Alzheimer Associations representatives. I met with Dr. Anna Burke from the Barrow Neurological Institute, who provided insights on the top challenges faced by caregivers, current priorties in dementia research, socio-political system that supports informal caregivers, digital tools that can be implemented in the field, and metrics to evaluate the quality of life of the caregiver

Therefore, we created Memora, an app that helps caregivers manage their patient’s routines by creating a 1-touch suite to assist caregivers in managing the challenges of dementia. Our app contains a calendar inbuilt with reminders, daily tasks, and events, an AI assistant to provide spoken reminders for patients to take medication, pick up phone calls, and receive messages, voice memos for the patient to hear and verify the validity of information, and fun memory games. With this app, we can boost patient trust and quality of life for caregivers and patients. 

Throughout the program, we regularly met with our Venture Devils mentor to provide updates and attain insights on the next actionable steps to progress the project forward. Additionally, in Spring 2025, Memora was selected to attend the Venture Devils Demo Day to pitch its idea to a panel of current investors and startup founders with the goal of gaining financial support in the development and prototyping phase of the project. We were awarded a stipend to fund the expenses of development. Overall, the experience left me feeling knowledgable about the process of founding a startup, the methods used in conducting needs analysis research, and pitching ventures to experienced professionals.

Relation to Grand Challenges Theme: Health

Participating in Venture Devils directly correlated with my Grand Challenges Theme of Health by introducing me to the entreprenurial dimension of medicine. With the aspiration of working in MedTech in the future, it was incredibly insightful for me to gain perspectives from dementia patients, caregivers, and dementia care facility representatives about the current challenges in the field, gaps in dementia care, and potential solutions like adopting AI-based technologies. Hearing these perspectives helped me better understand the real-world needs of patients and caregivers, while also highlighting the importance of designing healthcare technologies that are both practical and impactful.

Value Created

About 7 million people in the United States are diagnosed with Alzheimers and Dementia annually in the United States. With about 11 million family members pushed into caregiver roles, it is incredibly difficult to manage the daily needs of the dementia patients like medication schedules, communication, behavioral pattern tracking, and memory boosters. Therefore, the development of an AI-based healthcare platform that consolidates the needs of the caregivers will promote more efficient time managament, more control over erratic schedules, and enhanced care provided to patients.  The main goal of this project was to alleviate the stresses observed by dementia caregivers and improve their quality of life through more personalized caregiving resources. 

Pitch Competitions & Prototypes