Laney Students Advance Ventures in Health and Sustainable Development at The Hatchery
From identifying cardiovascular risk to supporting farmers in The Gambia and helping people build daily habits, three Laney Graduate School students are developing ventures that address challenges in health and community well-being.
Mendy Lebowitz, Jon Hamilton and Sushil Bohara participated in The Hatchery’s accelerator program and its 2026 Advisory Board Pitch. Through the program, they tested their ideas, refined their strategies and built connections with mentors and peers who could support their ventures’ growth.
Finding more information in routine medical scans
Lebowitz’s venture, CardioSight, explores how artificial intelligence can uncover information in routine CT scans to help predict a patient’s future risk of major cardiovascular events. The platform is designed to use existing scans without requiring additional imaging or changes to clinical workflows.
Lebowitz is pursuing an MD at Emory’s School of Medicine and a doctorate in biomedical engineering through the joint Emory and Georgia Tech program. His research interests include using medical imaging and deep learning to develop tools that help clinicians diagnose disease and assess patient risk.
Building sustainable livelihoods in The Gambia
For Hamilton, a master’s student in development practice, entrepreneurship offers a way to support locally driven development. He co-founded Fandema International with Haruna Jallow, a collaborator he met while serving in the Peace Corps in The Gambia.
The nonprofit pairs recoverable grants with income-generating activities, helping Gambian farmers develop enterprises such as gardens, livestock projects and tree nurseries. As projects generate income, farmers return funding to support future ventures. Unlike a traditional loan model, farmers whose projects are unsuccessful face no repayment penalties, reducing the risk of debt while encouraging them to pursue new opportunities.
Turning daily routines into lasting habits
Bohara’s venture, Life of Mine, uses AI-driven characters and an immersive virtual village to help users build daily habits and sustain positive change. Available through a native application and augmented reality, the platform is designed to support mental well-being by linking digital interactions with everyday routines.
Its approach combines gentle reminders with GPS-verified accountability and real-world check-ins tied to places and activities that matter to users. The goal is to make habit-building an engaging, ongoing experience.
Together, the three ventures illustrate the range of ideas Laney students are bringing to entrepreneurship. Through The Hatchery, they had opportunities to sharpen those ideas, consider how they could work in practice and develop relationships to help move them forward.