MANCHESTER, Jamaica—Northern Caribbean University (NCU) is the winner of the International Business Plan and Pitch competition 2026, organised by United States-based TEN (The Ecosystem Network).

NCU computer science students, Adrian Tenant and Gary Bryan, snatched the top prize of US$20,000 with their innovation, WellNest, which is an AI platform designed to assist doctors and other healthcare professionals in writing their clinical notes.

The NCU pair triumphed over 40 teams from universities and institutions in 20-plus countries across Africa, Asia, Europe, the Caribbean, the Middle East, and North America at the final pitch competition held in Kingston on June 24.

Local institutions included the University of the West Indies, University of Technology and University of the Commonwealth Caribbean -the venue for the finals.

This global innovation competition provides a platform for student-led startups to pitch their ideas to investors, judges and industry leaders.

“It was an amazing moment of relief and understanding that all the hard work that our coach and we had put into this was being paid back in full,” Gary Bryan recounted when their victory was declared, and the announcer noted this was the first time in history that a Jamaican team had won this competition.

On their way to winning the top prize, the pair won the sectional award of Best Business Plan.

NCU innovation competition coach Dr Hazel O’Connor remarked: “Their win reflects the quality of our students, the strength of our entrepreneurship programme and the transformative potential of AI-driven solutions for Jamaican and Caribbean healthcare. Our students are building solutions that solve real problems for our country and the region.”

NCU Interim President, Dr Vivienne Quarrie, congratulated Tenant and Bryan for continuing the institution’s “rich legacy” of excelling in science, technology and innovation competition at the international level.

This included the Microsoft Imagine Cup in 2010 as well as the International Business Model Competition in 2018, prevailing over 5,000 competitors from 30 countries, marking the first-time win by a Jamaican institution.
The Mandeville-based university has also dominated the National Business Model competition as well as the Girls in ICT Hackathon, both competitions they have won on multiple occasions.

Explaining the utility of their latest innovation, Tennant and Bryan say WellNest is Jamaica’s first fully localised AI medical scribe, a platform that listens to a doctor’s consultation and automatically writes the clinical note.

“The root purpose of WellNest is to reduce documentation burden and burnout on clinicians by simplifying and speeding up their note-taking process so that they can spend more time with less stress focused on assessing and diagnosing their patients,” the NCU innovators stated.

“WellNest will also allow them to see more patients per day, which will in the long run speed up clinical waiting times, saving lives faster and in higher volumes.” Thus, ‘Saving time for those who save lives’ states the slug line for the product.

The pair plan to launch WellNest as a fully commercialised SaaS (software as a service) for clinicians and health institutions to use all throughout the nation at a very affordable cost in comparison to all other alternatives.

“That way, WellNest is a win for us, the patients, and for the clinicians that serve us,” said Tennant and Bryan.