Nita Ugbedeojo Akoh’s App, My Atlas, Will Make Smartphones Even Smarter–and Help Humans Embrace Happier Lives

What’s your resting heart rate? How many hours of sleep did you get last night? How far did you walk today? It wasn’t that long ago that finding the answers to those questions might have meant a visit to the doctor’s office—or at least some careful note-taking. Now, though, millions of people have easy access to their personal health data in their pockets or on their wrists.

But what if that data could do more? What if, instead of a readout of numbers and statistics, you got personalized recommendations based on your own health trends? Could your smartphone detect early signs of depression or anxiety? Take it one step further: Could it suggest treatments and solutions?

This is the future Nita Ugbedeojo Akoh envisions. A not-so-distant future in which personal health data works smarter (and maybe harder, too).

That’s the basis of her platform, My Atlas, software that “harnesses the power of digital biomarkers from our phones or smartwatches to provide a more personalized and proactive path to wellness and behavioral healthcare,” she says.

And while My Atlas is still in its infancy, Akoh hopes that her app will one day provide a framework for long-term health—and perhaps even save lives.

Her vision and tenacity won acclaim from a panel of judges for the Women Who Empower Innovator Awards, an annual competition organized by the Office of University Advancement at Northeastern.

This year, organizers recognized 28 innovators (out of more than 100 who applied) with financial and entrepreneurial support. The winners received a portion of the organization’s largest total prize ever—$500,000—as well as a place among a global network of women who are creating, running, and iterating on ventures across myriad disciplines and business sectors.

To date, Women Who Empower has recognized 69 entrepreneurs with Innovator Awards over the course of three years, and has dispersed more than $800,000 to three cohorts of incisive, creative entrepreneurs.

Akoh was born and raised in Port Harcourt, the capital of Rivers State, Nigeria, and a city that Akoh describes jokingly as “the Florida of Nigeria.” Growing up, there just wasn’t much talk about mental health in her family, or in her larger community. But Akoh has always been a curious, observant person, and says that, despite the cultural taboo, she could tell that one of her aunts struggled with mental health issues. Akoh just wished someone would talk about it.

When Akoh was 14, she moved to St. Catherine’s, Ontario, to attend Ridley College, a boarding school. There, she says, a classmate died by suicide—another painful reminder of the often hidden toll that mental health struggles can take.

“It was at that moment that I decided to study behavioral neuroscience,” says Akoh, who graduated from Northeastern University in May 2023 with a bachelor’s degree in the field. She was looking for a reason why, she says, to questions that plagued her.

“Why would someone end their life?” she remembers wondering. “What pain must they have been in, and was there a way to help?”

Akoh’s first co-op experience at Northeastern was at a psychiatric hospital, where she grew steadily frustrated by what she saw as outdated treatment options and modalities. As soon as she resumed her academic courses, she signed up for coding and entrepreneurship classes, determined to find a more elegant and efficient solution to such a thorny problem as mental wellbeing. Akoh buried herself in her studies, forfeiting nights out with friends and other fun events to push forward with her work. That’s when My Atlas was born.

Akoh was eager to develop her business, but knew she’d need help. She leaned on her Northeastern community to help her learn how to navigate a complex business ecosystem in the U.S.

“I started with the basics,” Akoh says now, laughing. “I mean, like, ‘How do taxes work?’” She reached out to student leaders and faculty mentors to start building out her idea.

“I get a lot of emails from students, but hers really stood out,” recalls Aarti Sathyanarayana, an assistant professor with joint appointments in the Bouvé College of Health Sciences and the Khoury College of Computer Sciences at Northeastern. “Nita had already developed a business plan, and spoke very directly about it.”

Akoh’s idea—a platform that synthesizes and analyzes individual health data for signs that mental wellbeing may be in decline—aligns neatly with Sathyanarayana’s own research at the intersection of health and computer sciences, she says.

“She had a high-level idea, and my lab had been working on algorithms development. When we first spoke about it, I’d already created some algorithms during my PhD and postdoc [research] that could be incorporated into her app,” Sathyanarayana says.

The idea is straightforward: create software that scans digital biomarkers (such as heart rate, exercise data, and sleep data) for sudden, unexplained changes that may indicate shifts in an individual’s mental state. Then, nudge the app user toward behaviors that might help them.

“Maybe it’s as simple as suggesting they go for a walk with friends, or try a meditation,” Akoh says. “But I believe, if we’re going to be on our phones, closing our rings, checking our exercise data anyway, we should use our data to help us live healthier, happier lives.”

For Akoh and Sathyanarayana (who is working with Akoh on the app), it’s important that these suggestions are based in science—that there is research to back them up.

“Part of my frustration with the field of mental health apps and wellness wearables is that it doesn’t always feel very scientifically backed,” Sathyanarayana says. “Nita is interested in real algorithms I’ve created, and how to develop those in a focused way to make sure everything is scientific; that we’re giving recommendations and empowering the users through scientific research. That’s what’s going to be unique about My Atlas.”

While Akoh is still in the early stages of building out the platform and the software, she says that maintaining data security is paramount—and it’s one of the main things she’s focused on for now. Over the summer, she traveled to San Francisco to meet with other entrepreneurs and colleagues at Mills College at Northeastern University in Oakland, and hopes to launch a beta version of the platform among a small group of college-aged people within the year.

“I hope that My Atlas will be something people have on their watches, their phones, and that they use it as a guide for living a wholesome, mentally well life,” Akoh says. “I hope My Atlas will push people to think about mental and behavioral health. And possibly, eventually, we can get to people in Nigeria—to people globally—so that all humans can be well and get longevity. We can do what we’re meant to do, which is live.”