A student-built app designed to bring mental health care into patients’ daily lives has earned its creators a $30,000 top prize in this year’s Mayo Business Plan Competition.
Nari, developed by biology major Ansh Kulkarni ’26 and public health major Julian Soni ’27, aims to address a persistent gap in mental health treatment: long stretches between appointments.
“Mental health care is fragmented,” Kulkarni said during the team’s final presentation on March 25 on stage in Mayo Concert Hall. “It can happen twice a month. But with Nari, opportunities for care extend to every single day.”
Nari is an app for mental health care professionals that allows them to monitor their patients’ conditions outside of the clinic and propose interventions.
“We learn about problems in public health all the time,” Soni said. “But there isn’t always a platform to actually execute solutions. This was a way to take something we’ve learned and build something that can help people.”
Through conversations with practicing clinicians, the pair gained insight into the challenges providers face in maintaining continuity of care.
“They know they can help their patients, but they don’t always have the ability to stay connected between visits,” Kulkarni said.
Nari is designed to bridge that gap while also strengthening trust between patients and providers, which Soni says is critical in mental health care.
“The relationship directly impacts outcomes,” he said. “We want patients to feel like their clinician is always there.”
The app’s name itself is a reflection of the team’s mission to grow that trust. Soni came up with Nari during a trip to Japan while interning with a pharmaceutical company.
“It comes from a Japanese word meaning ‘to become,’” he said. “That idea of growth and change is central to what we’re building.”
Their work is already taking shape with clinicians, being reviewed at places like Mount Sinai Hospital.
For both Kulkarni and Soni, the Mayo Business Plan Competition was as much about learning as it was about winning.
“It showed me that business can be a way to solve real problems,” Kulkarni said. “Not just talk about them, but actually build something that makes an impact.”
“We’re excited to keep building this and really understand what it feels like to be in the shoes of a clinician, so we can improve how we treat mental health,” Soni said.
This year, 17 teams competed in the challenge, spending much of the academic year on their projects. Three teams made it to the finals in the Mayo Concert Hall on March 25, where each had 30 minutes to make presentations and respond to questions from a five-person panel of alumni judges. In all, $60,000 in prize money was awarded.
The Mayo Business Plan Competition was established in 2011 through the generosity of finance professor emeritus Herbert B. “Buddy” Mayo. Through the TCNJ Foundation, Mayo established an endowment that supports the competition. Learn more at mbpc.tcnj.edu.
Second Place ($20,000): Nomaly by Michael Carnivale ’27, finance; Anshul Neburi ’27, interdisciplinary business; Riley Rivera ’28, interdisciplinary business. Nomaly is an AI-native property management platform built specifically for independent landlords managing one to 100 units.
Third Place ($10,000): Direckt by Jeffrey Ernest ’26, computer science, and Yarden Merin ’26, finance. Direckt is a real-time accessibility intelligence platform that helps students with mobility-related disabilities navigate campus safely and independently, while giving universities an operational system to document, manage, and reduce accessibility risk.
— Emily W. Dodd ’03