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Company
Portfolio Data
Back to Company SearchACADEMIC WEB PAGES, INC.
UEI: WRJ5DFKAMNH2
Number of Employees: 2
HUBZone Owned: No
Woman Owned: Yes
Socially and Economically Disadvantaged: No
SBIR/STTR Involvement
Year of first award: 2022
2
Phase I Awards
0
Phase II Awards
N/A
Conversion Rate
$553,161
Phase I Dollars
$0
Phase II Dollars
$553,161
Total Awarded
Awards
SBIR Phase I: Integrating MentorAI into a student success platform
Amount: $286,418 Topic: LC
The broader/commercial impact of this SBIR Phase I project addresses the critical need for scalable, personalized student support in higher education. The project will develop an artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted mentoring platform that enhances peer mentoring programs through data-informed, evidence-based guidance. This innovation comes at a crucial time, as student distress rates have doubled over the past decade, and institutions struggle to meet growing demands for mental health and academic support. The technology will particularly benefit underrepresented students, who often face barriers accessing traditional support services. By combining AI capabilities with human peer mentors, this innovation will make technical advances in how to leverage AI tools within the context of human interactions. This will enable institutions to affordably scale high-quality, site-specific support services that improve student retention and success, advancing the health and wellbeing, academic achievement, and economic prosperity of marginalized students. The commercial potential is significant, with the mentoring software market projected to reach $1.3 billion by 2027. The platform's unique integration of data-driven insights with affordably scaled peer mentoring creates a competitive advantage in this growing market. The business model focuses initially on higher education institutions, with potential expansion into nonprofit, government, and professional development sectors. This product enhancement will offer unique features that address growing demands for personalized, evidence-based support. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will develop and validate an innovative integration of large language models with retrieval-augmented generation technology to enhance peer mentoring effectiveness. The research addresses technical challenges in secure data integration, model fine-tuning, and scalable system architecture. The project will implement
Tagged as:
SBIR
Phase I
2025
NSF
MentorHub: A Supportive Accountability Tool for MHapps
Amount: $266,743 Topic: 104
Project Summary/Abstract (30 lines) In the United States, 15 million children and adolescents need psychological services; yet only one-third receive psychological services of any kind. Even fewer receive care that is consistent with evidence-based guidelines for best practices. This gap has widened dramatically with the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of children, combined with disruptions to school-based mental health services. Mental Health Apps (MHapps) show early promise to alleviate mild to moderate forms of emotional disorders like anxiety and depression, while improving broader domains of functioning, including academic engagement and social competence. These MHapps are designed to promote youth mental health by delivering targeted, skills-based curricula in an interactive and accessible format. Unfortunately, the potential for MHapps has thus far been limited by low engagement, improper use, and high rates of noncompletion. Caring adults can help boost youth engagement in MHapps through what behavioral scientists refer to as “supportive accountability”—that is, regular check-ins, monitoring, troubleshooting, and other interactions. Several studies have highlighted the positive associations between supportive accountability and user engagement, number of logins, use of interactive tools, and outcomes. In fact, they have shown that, with guidance, the effects of technology-delivered interventions are comparable to those obtained in face-to-face interventions. By contrast, self-guided programs have yielded relatively fewer benefits. Moreover, the studies have found no difference in outcomes when youth were supported by clinicians versus everyday caring adults. Based on evidence that effectiveness and adherence to eHealth interventions is enhanced by human support, we developed a software framework (MentorHub) that coordinates the deployment and monitors the use of evidence-based MHapps. We anticipate that MentorHub will be widely used in youth-serving organizations (e.g., youth mentoring programs) and school based settings (e.g., secondary and post-secondary schools). The proposed research in Phase I will further (Aim 1) refine the MentorHub Product to establish usability (UI/UX) and feasibility in a large, youth mentoring program; and (Aim 2) determine the impact of the Product on youth mental health outcomes (transdiagnostic indicators of risk for mental illness, internalizing and externalizing symptomatology, and broader indicators of youth functioning). The pilot RCT study will test the short-term efficacy of the product in a national youth mentoring organization (Big Brothers Big Sisters New York) and involve 300 participants (75 mentor-mentee pairs/dyads randomized to the test group and 75 mentor-mentee pairs/dyads randomized to the control group). By the end of Phase I, we will have a tested product ready for national testing across Big Brother Big Sisters locations and in new school-based settings. By the end of Phase II, we anticipate a fully functioning and evaluated product ready for commercialization.
Tagged as:
STTR
Phase I
2022
HHS
NIH