AYA Solution and Product Overview
Agentic AI for Mental Health for Africa
Intelligent screening, triage, clinical reporting, and longitudinal monitoring—powered by voice analysis and constrained generative AI, built for low-resource and post-conflict settings.
AYA is building a scalable mental health infrastructure that listens, understands, and acts—one voice at a time.
The Problem
Tens of Millions Silent, Invisible, Suffering Across Africa. Approximately 150 million people are undiagnosed and untreated, struggling with depression, anxiety, and trauma. They suffer in silence because the systems designed to help them don't reach them.
5 to 10% detection rate in frontline care—90% or more Africans, presenting with significant mental health symptoms, unscreened
Africa’s mental health workforce gap is urgent: 1.4 vs. 13.5 workers per 100,000 globally.
Frontline workers are overwhelmed without tools, training, or supervision to help.
What AI-Powered Infrastructure Can Do
Reach people where they are — not where healthcare happens to exist
Support and extend the work of existing frontline workers, amplifying their impact
Operate reliably in resource-constrained, disconnected, and post-conflict settings
Provide scalable screening and triage to prioritize urgent cases and allocate limited resources efficiently
Enable remote monitoring and follow-up through low-bandwidth channels (SMS, voice, offline apps)
Offer decision-support for frontline workers, combining AI insights with human judgment to reduce burnout and improve outcomes
Generate anonymized population-level analytics to inform public health planning and targeted interventions
Real Communities. Real Care. Real Impact.
Across Ethiopia and Uganda, AYA is helping turn mental health innovation into practical care. These are not just pilot sites—they are trusted community pathways where women, youth, and families can be seen, supported, and connected to the care they deserve.
Ethiopia
Lenegewa Women's Rehabilitation and Job Training Center
Supporting women survivors of trauma through AI-enabled screening, clinical decision support, and personalized care pathways.
Focus: Women affected by exploitation, homelessness, severe poverty, and complex trauma.
Ethiopia
EECMY-DASSC
Bringing mental health screening and trauma-informed support to post-conflict communities affected by violence, displacement, and loss.
Focus: Community-based care through one of Ethiopia’s largest NGO networks.
Uganda
Karis Medical Center
Integrating Voice AI into clinical care to monitor patient progress, support provider decision-making, and ensure care continues beyond the first visit.
Focus: Physician-led mental health care expansion and outcome monitoring.
Voice AI to Clinical Action
Voice AI to Clinical Action: The Complete Care Pathway
AYA turns a 30-second voice sample into clinical insight. Our platform helps frontline providers detect psychiatric severity and use AI-guided action cards to support screening, triage, referral, follow-up, and care planning.
Voice AI Screening: Hearing the Unheard
Care begins with listening. Our Voice AI identifies signals of depression, anxiety, trauma, and emotional distress that may be missed in routine care.
85–90% accuracy in detecting psychiatric severity
Constrained GenAI: From Data to Clinical Reasoning
Voice data is translated into clear clinical next steps. Our constrained GenAI supports providers with risk assessment, triage guidance, care recommendations, documentation, and referral support.
AI that thinks like a clinician—bounded by human-in-the-loop, safety, and evidence
Longitudinal Voice AI Monitoring: Sustained Healing
Repeated voice check-ins help providers track improvement, flag deterioration, and adjust care over time, creating a living clinical record that keeps patients connected beyond a single visit.
Care that follows patients home—and keeps them connected
From Voice to Personalized Care
Evidence and Validation
AYA’s Voice AI is backed by four peer-reviewed studies and protected by Voice AI Patent #11508396. The technology supports psychiatric severity detection by analyzing acoustic, prosodic, and linguistic markers in brief voice samples, helping expand objective mental health screening and clinical decision support in underserved communities.
Trauma-Informed AI Care for Ethiopian Women
Alemu, Ohiomoba, Kahsay, et al.
International Journal of Psychiatry Research • 2026
AI-enabled rehabilitation model for Ethiopian women experiencing complex trauma, homelessness, poverty, and exploitation.
Key contribution: Trauma-informed care pathway integrating AI screening, clinical support, and local mental health infrastructure.
Voice AI Measurement-Based Care for Youth
Alemu, Cárdenas Bautista, Vinson, Ohiomoba, et al.
Telehealth and Telemedicine Today • 2024
Demonstrated how Voice AI can support youth mental health treatment in underserved communities.
Key contribution: Objective severity monitoring to reduce disparities and improve treatment follow-up.
AI Voice Detection of Pediatric Psychiatric Severity
Alemu, Teshome, Salegh, Ohiomoba, & Vinson
Annals of Research Protocols • 2023
Pilot study using voice recognition and universal emotional signals to quantify psychiatric severity in children and adolescents.
Key contribution: Early validation of voice-based psychiatric severity detection.
Scalable Voice AI for Mental Health Screening
Caulley, Alemu, Burson, et al.
JMIR Research Protocols • 2023
Validated the methodology for using AI and voice recognition to support psychiatric assessment.
Key contribution: Scalable framework for objective mental health screening in low-resource settings.
Our Team: AYA’s team combines clinical, AI, and implementation expertise to build practical tools that improve psychiatric severity detection, clinical decision support, and personalized care in low-resource communities.
Yared Alemu, Ph.D.
Co-Founder/CEO
Driven by a vision to build something meaningful, Dr. Alemu brings a rare blend of strategic leadership, clinical expertise, and hands-on innovation. He sets the direction and standard for everything we do.
Patrick Ohiomoba, MS
Co-Founder/CTO
Focused, innovative, and driven by results, Patrick leads AYA’s AI product strategy with both technical depth and practical vision. As CTO, he translates complex ideas into scalable solutions, guiding the development of AI products that are purposeful, effective, and built for real-world impact.
Abdi Degefu, MD
Implementation Director
Experienced, collaborative, and deeply grounded in implementation, Dr. Abdi Degefu plays a key role in translating AYA’s vision into real-world impact. As an implementation partner, he helps drive effective deployment, local coordination, and practical execution in the settings where the work matters most.
Yoel Asfaha, MD
Lead Mental Health Clinician
Compassionate, experienced, and clinically grounded, Dr. Yoel Asfaha leads AYA’s mental health services with a strong focus on quality, consistency, and impact. As Lead Mental Health Clinician, he helps ensure that care delivery remains practical, responsive, and aligned with the needs of the individuals and communities we serve.
Dr. Delessa Bulcha
Director of Strategic Partnerships
Dr. Delessa leads AYA’s efforts to build and maintain strong private–government–NGO collaborations, helping align clinical innovation, public-sector priorities, and community-based implementation for scalable impact.
Fikirte Teklemariam, MD
Mental Health Clinician
Dr. Fikirte Teklemariam contributes medical and psychiatric expertise to AYA’s AI research team, supporting data collection and the development of tools to detect psychiatric severity for earlier identification, stronger clinical decision-making, and personalized care.
Randa Ibrahim, MD
Mental Health Clinician
Randa Ibrahim contributes clinical and research expertise to AYA’s AI research team, supporting the development of psychiatric severity detection tools that improve early identification, clinical decision-making, and personalized care..
Selam Abdi, MD
Mental Health Clinician
Dr. Selam Abdi contributes medical and research expertise to AYA’s AI research team, focusing on advancing and validating psychiatric severity detection models for clinical use.
Octavian Balatel
Software Engineer
Octavian supports the development of AYA’s digital health platforms, including Clarity AI™ and ClarityConnect™. His work focuses on software engineering, data management, security, and user interface development to make AYA’s tools reliable and practical for frontline care.
Lidia Tessema, MD
Mental Health Clinician
Dr. Lidia Tessema provides psychiatric services as part of AYA’s data collection and research process, supporting the development and validation of psychiatric severity detection tools for clinical use.
Let’s Work Together
