By Parisa Burton
Nation & World Editor
Juniper, a platform dedicated to simplifying patient documentation and billing, took home the grand prize of $30,000 in the 2025 Mayo Business Plan Competition. A team composed of CMO Livia Minaides, a sophomore marketing major, CEO Yasaman Galer, a senior biology major, and COO Isha Patwardhan, a junior biology major, created Juniper and won the competition.
The Juniper team identified a major concern in the healthcare industry, where professionals dismiss genuine patient concerns as trivial. Patients often feel unheard, and rushed out the door during appointments. The team of women discovered that doctor burnout plays a major role in perpetuating this trend.
“Through further research, we determined that a major contributor to burnout is the overwhelming administrative burden, which strains interpersonal interactions between doctors and patients,” Patwardhan said.
The team saw an opportunity to develop a solution that would reduce this stress, streamline workflows and enhance the quality of care. Their ultimate goal was to strengthen the connection between healthcare providers and patients for more meaningful interactions.
According to Patwardhan, Juniper is an audio-based transcription platform that leverages large language processing models to transcribe patient consultations. It uses this transcribed audio to generate billing codes, which streamlines administrative tasks for medical providers in settings like private practices and hospitals.
The team started brainstorming business ideas in December 2024, ultimately deciding to focus on MedTech due to Galer and Patwardhan’s industry knowledge from their experience as emergency medical technicians as well as volunteer work in hospitals.
Currently a scribe, Galer started to notice the inefficiency of the documentation process for doctors and nurses.
“When we realized this issue impacted not just us, but also a significant number of people in the U.S., we knew it was worth pursuing,” Galer said. “We recognized several systemic issues that we could address and we spoke to physicians and nurses to narrow down where our focus should go.”
The main challenge the team encountered during the process was ensuring that there was a need in the market for their business idea.
“We had to continuously revise our business model because of either extreme competition, or a lack of market, or feasibility, and that required talking to medical and tech professionals who are extremely busy,” Galer said.
The team explained in a statement that while audio transcription is a competitive industry due to the growing accessibility of artificial intelligence, their billing automation, AI chat-gatekeeper and clinical support sets them apart in the marketplace, as few competitors have integrated these features in a seamless and accurate manner.
The team has worked diligently to refine their business plan by reaching out to the College’s alumni from diverse fields such as law, marketing, strategy and technology, as well as leveraging Galer and Patwardhan’s connections in medicine and tech.
“Through discussions, feedback sessions and continuous revisions, we made sure our strategy was clear, realistic and innovative,” Minaides said. “This collaborative process not only helped us fine-tune the details but also gave us the confidence that our plan is well-rounded and built for long-term success.”
The team’s next step is continuing to refine the idea through further research and discussions with industry experts and patients. They are reserving the prize money until they secure a chief technical officer, which would allow them to move forward with developing a demo and seeking additional funding.
NODE, an ed-tech platform committed to strengthening communication in the educational environment, placed second in the competition. The team that created NODE includes Thvisha Masireddy, a junior early childhood education major, Laasya Seelam, a junior biomedical engineering major, and Akshita Anupam, a junior chemistry major.
Third place was Confio, a technology company transforming prototyping for small businesses and startups. The team that created Confio is made up of Rebecca Kimmick, a senior electrical engineering major, Jasmine Ocasio, a senior computer engineering major, Chris Toala, a senior computer engineering major, and Shawn Kushner, a senior computer engineering major.
The College’s annual Mayo Business Plan Competition was established in 2011 by former finance professor Herbert B. “Buddy” Mayo. The competition is open to all majors, and teams must be between two and four members. Teams must come up with a business concept and develop a viable business plan.
All participating teams submitted their initial plans by Jan. 10, with six teams invited to advance to the semifinals on Feb. 26 and three to the finals on March 26, where they delivered a 30-minute presentation before judges in the Mayo Concert Hall.
