When Juliann Akwele McAddy ’25 joined the Ashesi Health & Care Initiative Incubator, she was already working on MamaMonitor, a prenatal monitoring device she had developed as part of her final-year capstone project. The idea behind MamaMonitor began with a question she could not shake ever since a close relative lost her first baby due to pregnancy complications.
“I kept wondering why reassurance and fetal monitoring had to exist almost exclusively within hospital walls,” she recalls. “I thought there had to be a way to bring some of that peace of mind outside clinical settings and into the home.”
Over the past months, coaching, mentorship, and customer discovery have helped transform MamaMonitor from a student project into a venture preparing to improve maternal healthcare beyond the hospital.
Although she studied Computer Science, McAddy never believed that solving healthcare problems belonged only to clinicians. Before writing code or designing hardware, McAddy immersed herself in the world she hoped to serve. She spent time in maternity wards, interviewed expectant mothers, and consulted healthcare professionals to understand their experiences firsthand.
“One of the biggest lessons I took away from Ashesi was the importance of design thinking,” she says. “Understanding people’s needs and building solutions around their real experiences rather than assumptions.”
That mindset shaped how she approached MamaMonitor.
The first prototype was an ambitious Internet of Things (IoT) device powered by artificial intelligence and paired with a mobile application. But as development progressed and she engaged more with potential users, she discovered that the most advanced technology would not always be the most useful. For many of the mothers she hoped to serve, affordability and reliable internet connectivity were significant barriers.
“I learned that being innovative wasn’t really about creating the most complex technology,” she says. “It was simply about building something mothers could actually use and benefit from.”
One conversation with a coach changed her perspective. That mindset shift became one of the defining moments of her incubation journey. At one point, McAddy admits she was putting pressure on herself to build something that would leave everyone impressed.
The coaching didn’t stop at product design. It also introduced her to aspects of venture building she hadn’t considered, from intellectual property and regulatory pathways to ethics, partnerships and the realities of bringing a medical device to market.
“In the beginning, I was just focused on building something and putting it out there,” she says. “Now I’m looking at how to protect my brand, my device, and my idea, and to understand the ethical considerations around it.”
Looking back, McAddy believes the biggest transformation from the incubator was in the way she learned to think. Today, she thinks beyond engineering to regulation, partnerships, intellectual property, customer adoption, and long-term sustainability.
“I began to see MamaMonitor as a real venture with the potential of solving a real healthcare challenge,” she says.
MamaMonitor is still in its early stages. McAddy has engaged more than 400 expectant mothers, built relationships with senior obstetricians, advanced their regulatory pathway towards approval , and continued refining both their business model and go-to-market strategy.
