Country of Residence
United States
Age
13
Project title
kinara: Menopause Care Where Women Already Are
Project Summary: Describe your project in one sentence
Kinara is free menopause care that needs no doctor: an 8-week program of proven non-drug treatments for hot flashes, sleep, mood and bladder leaks, delivered by an AI voice coach on any phone and in weekly circles that trained volunteers lead at rural clinics and shelters.
Project Category
My project is an existing project that I started
Project Stage
Pilot-Stage (We’ve tried an activity or two)
Founding Story: What was the spark that led you to start your project? What was the "Aha!" moment that led you to get started and see the potential for this to succeed?
I learned about Yale's Micro-Clinic, a student startup that won Startup Yale's 2026 Future of Health Innovation Prize by having community health workers deliver care where doctors rarely reach. Around the same time, I read a 2025 University of Washington study of 1,531 midlife women. Rural women in late perimenopause had more muscle aches (65% vs 49%) and panic attacks (30% vs 18%) than urban women, yet only 11% of the women studied used hormone therapy. My first idea was an app to connect these women with menopause specialists. Then I saw the numbers: the US has about one certified menopause practitioner for every 29,500 midlife women, and 39% of women live more than an hour's drive from one. A referral app would send women to a door that isn't there. The aha moment was realizing the care itself doesn't need a doctor. The Menopause Society recommends CBT and clinical hypnosis for hot flashes, and trials show both work as self-help. Pelvic floor training for bladder leaks works through an app. Zimbabwe's Friendship Bench showed trained community members can deliver therapy that works. If the treatments can travel, they can go where women already are: a rural clinic waiting room or a shelter's group room. That's Kinara.
The Problem: What problem are you helping to solve? Why does it matter to you and your community?
Every woman who lives long enough goes through menopause, yet only 5% of US women aged 45 to 64 received menopause-specific care in 2021 (AARP). Symptoms often last 7 to 9 years: hot flashes, sleepless nights, anxiety, low mood and bladder leaks that make it hard to work, rest and stay social. Severe hot flashes are also linked to higher heart disease risk. The gap is widest for women with the fewest options. Rural women report more aches and panic attacks than urban women, and many live over an hour from a trained clinician. Women on Medicaid are half as likely to have used hormone therapy as privately insured women, and a leading menopause telehealth company can't treat Medicaid patients at all. Survivors of domestic violence face worse symptoms: PTSD triples the odds of sleep problems in midlife. About 1 in 5 people experiencing homelessness are 55 or older, often with no phone, no privacy and no regular doctor. This matters to me because midlife women hold families, jobs and communities together, yet most are left to push through years of symptoms alone. The treatments that help already exist. Women in rural clinics and shelters deserve the same relief that insured, well-connected women can get. Right now most of them get nothing.
Your Solution: How are you solving this problem? Share your specific solution.
Kinara is an 8-week program of menopause treatments that need no prescription and no clinician, built for places women already go: rural clinics, domestic violence shelters and homeless shelters. How it works: 1. A woman opens Kinara on her own phone or the site's shared tablet. No name, account or payment. She answers 15 questions by tap or voice, in English or Spanish. 2. Kinara matches her to modules based on what bothers her most: Calm Body (self-hypnosis audio for hot flashes and sleep), Cool Mind (CBT lessons for hot flashes, mood and worry) and Strong Floor (guided pelvic floor exercises for bladder leaks). Donated comfort kits with vaginal moisturizer help with dryness. 3. An AI voice coach guides about 20 minutes of daily practice and reminds her to keep going. 4. Once a week she joins a circle at the site, led by a trained volunteer or staff member using our scripts. Circles replace the coaching calls that made these treatments work in trials, and add peer support. 5. Every 2 weeks she retakes the check-in. If a symptom isn't improving, Kinara adjusts her plan using fixed rules. At week 8 she keeps a progress record she can show any clinician. Safety is built in. Questions about bleeding after menopause, chest pain, self-harm or danger at home stop the program and connect her with staff and 911, 988 or the domestic violence hotline. Kinara never diagnoses or recommends medicine, stores nothing that identifies her, and has a quick-exit button. Clinics pay a monthly subscription, sponsors fund shelters, and women never pay. We have built a working bilingual prototype of the full flow and an 8-week circle guide.
Impact: How has your project created impact / made a difference so far? Or, if at an early stage, what will impact look like?
Kinara is at the prototype stage, so we haven't served women yet. Here is the impact we expect and why we think it will work. Each module rests on strong evidence. In the MENOS 2 trial, 73% of women given self-help CBT benefited after 6 weeks, against 21% with no treatment. In a 2025 randomized trial, self-administered hypnosis cut hot flashes by 53%. In a Swedish trial, about 90% of women using a pelvic floor app improved, against 20% of controls. And on Zimbabwe's Friendship Bench, therapy from trained lay workers left 14% of patients with depression symptoms after 6 months, against 50% with standard care. Our first goal is a 90-day pilot at three sites: a homeless shelter, a rural clinic and a domestic violence shelter. We will measure how many women enroll and finish, how much their symptom scores improve by week 8, and the cost per woman who improves. Our north-star metric is the share of women whose symptoms improve meaningfully. Kinara is built to spread cheaply. It runs on phones and tablets that sites already have, with staff they already employ, so if the pilot works, any rural clinic or shelter can offer menopause care right away without hiring a single new clinician.
Your Innovation: What is different about your project compared to other programs or solutions already out there? How is your project new or innovative?
Kinara takes treatments that already work to places they have never reached. 1. Care, not referrals. Most menopause innovation sends women to a clinician: telehealth companies, referral lines and clinician training programs. That breaks down when there are about 29,500 midlife women for every certified menopause practitioner. Kinara delivers the treatment itself. 2. Proven non-drug treatments in one program. Self-hypnosis apps, CBT books and pelvic floor apps exist separately, are sold to women who can pay, and assume a private phone and strong English. Kinara combines them, matches them to each woman's symptoms and adapts as she improves. 3. Built for shelters and rural clinics. No name or account, shared devices save nothing, a quick-exit button wipes the screen, and voice guidance in English and Spanish helps women with low literacy or poor vision. Because nothing identifying is stored, it is designed to fit federal confidentiality rules for domestic violence shelters. 4. People plus AI. We borrowed from two proven models: Yale's Micro-Clinic, which won Startup Yale's 2026 Future of Health Innovation Prize by having community health workers deliver care, and Zimbabwe's Friendship Bench, where trained grandmothers deliver therapy. Kinara's AI coach handles daily practice, and weekly circles led by trained volunteers give the human support that made the self-help trials work. 5. Honest by design. The AI never diagnoses, prescribes or makes up answers. It uses fixed, clinician-reviewed content and hands red flags to a person.
How many people are on your team?
5
Your team: What role(s) do your team members play? How do you share leadership with them?
Founder (me): leads product, research and partnerships. Clinical reviewers (recruiting): a certified menopause clinician and a psychologist review all content and safety questions. Circle leaders (recruiting): EMT and pre-med students trained to run weekly circles. Site partners: staff at each clinic or shelter co-design how Kinara runs there. Shared leadership: circle leaders help rewrite the scripts, and women who finish the program can return as peer co-leaders.
What’s Next: What are the next steps you plan to take to grow or strengthen your project over the next year? If your project is still in the idea stage, describe the steps you will take over the next three months to launch or begin developing it.
Next three months: 1. Clinical review: a certified menopause clinician and a psychologist review every lesson, audio script, circle guide and safety question. 2. Finish the first three modules in English and Spanish: full 20-minute hypnosis sessions, 8 weeks of CBT lessons and the pelvic floor program. 3. Sign three pilot sites: a homeless shelter, a rural clinic and a domestic violence shelter, and review our data handling with the state domestic violence coalition. 4. Recruit EMT and pre-med students and train them as circle leaders. 5. Line up donated comfort kits for every pilot site. Next year: - Run a 90-day pilot that adds one site type at a time, with a safety check before each new site goes live. - Measure completion, symptom change at week 8 and cost per woman who improves, and share the results publicly. - Add a sleep program and comfort-kit lessons, and test a movement module for aches, the biggest rural symptom with no proven program yet. - Expand to more rural clinics and shelters, funded by clinic subscriptions, sponsors and state Rural Health Transformation grants.
How do you encourage other people to join your project or learn about the problem you’re working on? If you have a new idea, tell us how you will do this in the future.
We bring people in at four levels. Students: EMT and pre-med students want real experience serving patients. Kinara trains them as circle leaders, so every new site grows our volunteer base and gives future clinicians hands-on experience with midlife women's health. Women themselves: The weekly circle is the heart of the program. Women learn the skills together, and those who finish can return as peer co-leaders, the same way Zimbabwe's Friendship Bench grew through trained community grandmothers. The public: Menopause is still rarely talked about. We will share plain-language menopause facts on social media and at campus health events, and publish anonymous pilot results and our circle guide so other clinics, shelters and student groups can run or adapt Kinara. Partners: Kinara gives shelters, rural clinics and hospital community-benefit programs a concrete way to support midlife women, and each partner helps shape how it runs at their site.
