Nestling: Your NICU Parent Copilot wins Rep. Addison McDowell’s 2025 Congressional App Challenge in North Carolina’s Sixth District.

When asked what inspired the creation of Nestling, Haashini Balasubramanian said, “The idea for Nestling came from my desire to use artificial intelligence to address gaps in maternal and neonatal health. While researching AI models that predict neonatal outcomes based on maternal factors, I found a common issue. After babies leave the NICU, families often lose access to ongoing, guided monitoring. Parents return home with discharge papers, medication lists, and follow-up notes, but without the structured insights they had in the hospital.

“I wanted to create an app that brings that guidance home. I envisioned a system that blends data science’s precision with the warmth of parental love: a digital companion that learns, reassures, and celebrates milestones with families. Witnessing how AI can personalize information motivated me to make it emotional, too. That’s why I designed Nestling’s logbook to not only track data but also store photos: small reminders that technology can document love just as well as numbers.

“Nestling’s mission is personal. Helping parents feel more confident through technology matters deeply to me. Healthcare is fundamentally about empathy. As I designed the app, I considered how each feature, from the color scheme to the forecasting model, could promote comfort, clarity, and hope. I also wanted to make medical knowledge more accessible. Many parents lack a healthcare background or easy access to specialists. Nestling aims to simplify complex information, making it empowering rather than overwhelming. By merging engineering, artificial intelligence, and compassion, I sought to create something that gives parents more confidence and gives newborns a better start.”