F E A T U R E
The Problem Solvers
By Ashley Festa • Illustration by Nicolas Ortega
Meet four alumni who use their lived experiences as inspiration for entrepreneurship.
Some alumni of New York Institute of Technology make a purposeful journey into entrepreneurship, while others accidentally find themselves on that path. No matter how they ended up as business owners, one thing remains the same: They are problem solvers. Builders. Helpers. Visionaries.
Meet four New York Tech alumni who had questions without answers—so they created the solutions they were searching for.
Alumnus’ Heart for Helping Others Drives Entrepreneurial Journey
Paolo Narciso (B.S. ’08) could not have known the severe asthma that plagued him throughout his childhood would spark an entrepreneurial mindset.
“When I played soccer, I never knew when an asthma attack would hit. So I wanted to see whether I could predict when it would happen,” Narciso says. “I wanted to write code to predict attacks and figure out what might be causing them. I started writing code because if I was experiencing a problem, I might as well create a solution.”
Paolo Narciso
He followed his interest in human performance to New York Tech where he earned a degree in biomedical sciences. But his entrepreneurial bent led the way after graduation—he founded and exited multiple companies, including CloudHealth Asia, where he used his enthusiasm for both biomedical sciences and coding to develop artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning platforms to help people access primary care and manage chronic diseases.
In his most recent venture, Narciso teamed up with several physicians to build another healthcare-focused company called PeopleCare.ai, which aims to help people more easily navigate the U.S. healthcare system through technology.
“We wanted to solve a societal issue: How can we make healthcare super easy for consumers?” says Narciso, who co-founded the company two years ago. “How can I build an AI platform to help people live a healthy lifestyle? Users with chronic conditions and rare diseases need help navigating the healthcare system and getting connected to other people living with these conditions. Medical research says that when you’re connected to someone else, you have better health outcomes. You can’t heal alone. PeopleCare.ai focuses on a holistic approach to helping people navigate those issues.”
Narciso’s heart for helping others extends to education as well. That’s the concept behind Core Immersive, a nonprofit Narciso founded eight years ago. The organization hosts an annual cohort of engineering, product management, and user interface (UI) design undergraduates who work together on projects to hone their technical skills. Some of the students in this year’s group are working with a television and movie studio to help the company predict risks of production problems and delays. Others in the cohort are building AI platforms to help a large non-governmental organization (NGO) manage crises in the countries it serves.
Another program at Core Immersive pairs tech-minded mentors with underserved, low-income students. Together, the experts and students work on projects to solve problems that the student is interested in.
“We ask: ‘What problems do you see in your community that you want to solve?’” Narciso says. “And then we help them build a solution. Kids learn to innovate and think critically to solve problems and make it real.”
“We ask: ‘What problems do you see in your community that you want to solve?’” Narciso says. “And then we help them build a solution. Kids learn to innovate and think critically to solve problems and make it real.”
The value of the mentorship goes both ways, allowing the experts to stay active and engaged in their industry. “These mentors are retiring or retired engineers and product managers from Microsoft, HP, IBM, Google, and the U.S. government, and large NGOs like the Red Cross and AARP. For instance, we have a mentor working with us who was the chief data innovation officer for the U.S. Census Bureau and someone from Microsoft who was part of the original Windows team,” Narciso says. “Sometimes people think that when we’re in our 50s and 60s, we’re not technical anymore, and these experts want to stay relevant in their field, so we measure outcomes for the child and for the mentor.”
Beyond the common financial and not-enough-hours-in-the-day challenges of entrepreneurship, Narciso says he sometimes faces existential dilemmas.
“I’m writing a book about a philosophical approach to technology: People want to use technology to fix what’s broken, but are we actually fixing what’s broken? Or is it just ‘innovation theater’?” Narciso says. “I have to ask: Does this really matter?”
And this vision of what really matters leads to Narciso’s advice for aspiring entrepreneurs.
“I think you need to have a lived experience when trying to solve something. You always want to scratch your own itch,” he says. “Ask yourself: Why are you the right person to solve this problem with your business venture? What makes you uniquely qualified to solve it?”
Alumna Builds Bridges for Better Communication Through AI
Rebecca Koniahgari (M.S. ’17) took pride in her meticulous and detailed style of written communication, but she began noticing some of her messages to colleagues would go unanswered.
“One-on-one conversations with those colleagues were great,” Koniahgari says. “They weren’t trying to be disrespectful. So I thought, ‘Well, something else is going on here.’”
Rebecca Koniahgari
She started investigating what might be causing the disconnect and learned about the communication pain points of people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). It turned out that Koniahgari’s communication style—which she viewed as thorough—came across as overwhelming to people with ADHD.
When she tried changing her approach, Koniahgari realized that constantly rewriting her messages was inefficient. She tried using ChatGPT for help, but the chatbot lacked the context of each situation.
“What if I designed a system that could do this?” Koniahgari says. “What if it told me where I’m going wrong?”
A serendipitous opportunity came along for the computer science grad in July 2025: Koniahgari entered an online generative artificial intelligence hackathon and built an AI assistant to help people without ADHD communicate better with people with ADHD. And BRYGE AI was born.
Less than a year into its existence, BRYGE AI earned a silver Stevie Award for Best Health Tech Product for Women at the 2025 Stevie Awards for Women in Business, one of nine categories for the global premier business awards that recognize women’s excellence in the workplace. “The judges remarked how relevant BRYGE AI is and how it affects real people and that we need this in the workplace,” Koniahgari says. BRYGE AI was also recently featured in a Fast Company article.
“Being an entrepreneur means both freedom and responsibility. Freedom around building something you’re passionate about, but also a lot of pressure because the decision is yours—you either make or break the product based on your decisions,” says Koniahgari.
The web app currently features eight communication scenarios to help people write with more empathy and emotional intelligence. Although the platform is not yet a company, Koniahgari envisions several possibilities for the direction of the tool, including work communication, personal relationships, or clinical settings. She currently offers a free version, with paid tiers coming soon, and is working to integrate the tool into AI platforms such as ChatGPT and Claude as well as business communication platforms such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, and email through a Google Chrome extension.
“Being an entrepreneur means both freedom and responsibility. Freedom around building something you’re passionate about, but also a lot of pressure because the decision is yours—you either make or break the product based on your decisions,” says Koniahgari, who also earned a bronze Stevie Award for her work as the full-time technical lead at Uptrend Motion, an AI-first digital agency. She has also served as a mentor for New York Tech students, helping to empower women to thrive in the tech industry.
“Women must lift up women, and New York Tech gave me confidence that I can innovate, too,” Koniahgari says. “My advice for other entrepreneurs is to start with a real problem you have experienced and want to fix. Pick something that frustrates you. You don’t have to quit everything one day and jump into entrepreneurship; you can do it thoughtfully. Refine and test what you’re doing. And listen more than you talk. Users will tell you what they need if you’re paying attention.”
Breaking Barriers, Building Relationships
Christiana Marron (D.P.T. ’16) loved helping her physical therapy patients, and she always knew she wanted to provide comprehensive, personalized care.
“I loved manual therapy, but I realized early on when I was looking for jobs that I wasn’t going to find a clinic that resonated with that deeper level of care,” Marron says.
Christiana Marron. PHOTO: CAITIE ELLIOTT
“In an orthopedic setting, it was always a rush; you never got to spend time with the client. I learned great maneuvers and techniques at New York Tech, but you can’t create meaningful, lasting change in just five or 10 minutes with a client. I went to school for all those years, and I didn’t feel like I was being a doctor.”
Then she identified what was holding her back: the limitations of the traditional insurance-based healthcare model. She emphasizes that health insurance isn’t inherently bad; indeed, many people would not be able to afford physical therapy treatment without insurance coverage. But Marron wanted to provide more individualized care than health insurance companies were willing to pay for.
Christiana Marron. PHOTO: CAITIE ELLIOTT
So, to conquer that obstacle, she established her cash-pay practice, Dr. Christiana Marron Physical Therapy & Sports Rehabilitation, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in 2018. She offers 90-minute sessions of one-on-one physical therapy for her clients at the pace that will achieve the best results for their needs—not based on an insurance company’s timeline. “Every patient receives a personalized game plan focused on addressing the root cause and achieving long-term results,” Marron says.
And her self-pay business model has not deterred patients. She treats nearly 50 patients a week, including on Saturdays, and she’s often booked several weeks out. Her approach has attracted a diverse clientele, from children to older adults to high-level athletes, including professional football players, boxers, and mixed martial artists.
“I’m incredibly grateful,” Marron says. “Sometimes new clients get frustrated because they have to wait six weeks to get an appointment, but then they say the treatment was worth the wait. I’m very blessed.”
In addition to having many great clients, she also has curated a community of doctors in other professions, physicians who can treat other conditions that her patients might have. Her mindset of working with other clinicians to help her patients is an approach she learned at New York Tech.
“In my last year at New York Tech, I was selected to work on a case for a veteran who’d had a leg amputated, and I had to work with occupational therapists, nurses [from the School of Health Professions], and doctors of osteopathic medicine [from the College of Osteopathic Medicine]. We all had to come together to make a game plan for this patient. New York Tech brought that to our attention—that we had to work collectively to understand what every health profession does. As a business owner, I can do that now. I can get in touch with other health professionals to help my clients.”
“I’ve learned to check my ego at the door,” Marron says. “I’ve learned I can’t take it personally when people are going through tough stuff because it’s about them, not about me. I just need to help them get what they need, and I try to empathize with them.”
While she’s passionate about helping her clients, Marron still has some hard days. When patients are in pain and have been unable to find solutions, they can be difficult to work with.
“I’ve learned to check my ego at the door,” Marron says. “I’ve learned I can’t take it personally when people are going through tough stuff because it’s about them, not about me. I just need to help them get what they need, and I try to empathize with them.”
She’s still involved at New York Tech as part of the School of Health Professions Dean’s Advisory Board. And she encourages anyone considering entrepreneurship: “Absolutely go for it. Even if you’re unsure, take the chance and do it anyway. If you mess up along the way, you’ll learn from it.”
Electrical Engineer Fails at Retirement, Thrives as Entrepreneur
Wilson Milian (B.S. ’92) was very successful as an engineer in upper management of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), but he failed in his attempt to retire.
“I was an intern at the MTA during my junior year at New York Tech, and when I graduated, they offered me a job immediately. I rose through the ranks, and 34 years later, I retired. I spent two weeks retired,” Milian says with a laugh.
Wilson Milian. PHOTO: LORENZO BEVILAQUA
Within those two weeks, a former boss asked him to join AECOM, a multinational infrastructure consulting firm, as a rail and transit systems consultant. Milian enjoyed his work in the niche area for two years when his desire to start his own business, a thought that had formed many years earlier, surfaced.
“I really felt at this point in my life, I needed more control over my time. I wanted the satisfaction of being able to pick and choose projects that interested me,” Milian says. “I was inspired by New York Tech’s focus on entrepreneurship, and I thought, ‘This is the time to do it.’ I decided to start my own business and see what I can do on my own.”
So he founded Milian Consultants in January 2025 and offers program and project management services for rail and transit capital projects, as well as consulting on new emerging technology and AI systems. Right away, he was surprised to discover that two clients had been waiting patiently for him to start his own business so they could work with him.
“As a lifelong engineer, my company vision is very clear: Keep building bigger, better, safer, less expensive, more reliable,” says Milian, who also emphasizes that a consulting business is ultimately about people. “It’s not just your personality or presentation; it’s about really listening to the other person and learning what they’re struggling with and figuring out how your experience can help them.”
“I was inspired by New York Tech’s focus on entrepreneurship, and I thought, ‘This is the time to do it.’ I decided to start my own business and see what I can do on my own,” says Milian.
Milian’s success with his rail and transit consulting business comes as no surprise to those at New York Tech who watched him lead a successful career with the MTA. Babak D. Beheshti, Ph.D., dean of the College of Engineering and Computing Sciences, officially recognized Milian’s many accomplishments with the Hall of Fame Alumnus of the Year award at the college’s 2024 Ingenium Awards ceremony.
This award honors graduates who not only have achieved professional success but also have committed to ongoing service and support of the university. At the time of the award, Milian joined the advisory board for the college’s Cooperative Education (Co-op) Program to help students secure internships. “It was a full-circle moment for me,” he says. “My internship gave me the stepping stone for a first job and a lifelong career. I was thrilled to be part of paying it forward to the next generation of engineers who want to get their foot in the door.”
His joy in helping students has recently extended to serving on the board of mentors for Startup Tech Central, the university’s new hub for students who want to pursue entrepreneurship.
“I tell them: Embrace mistakes. I’ve made quite a few, and nothing is a better teacher than making a mistake and learning from it and saying, ‘I’ll never do that again,’” he says, laughing. “One of my biggest challenges was learning how to run a business. I tend to dive in headfirst to see how deep the water is. Some of the things you learn are surprising—that’s the fun of it.”
And as he mentors students, Milian acknowledges that he’s still learning. “I tell students, ‘I can only guide you in the direction where you can find your own answers, so don’t be afraid to build something new. Throw out the old book and write a new one.’ I’m thrilled to see what innovations these students come up with.”
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