How A We Rise Demo Day Winner Is Supporting Arizona’s Healthcare Pipeline

Agnes Adams at We Rise Demo Day 2025

Agnes Adams can read people’s minds. As a brain wave technician, known formally as an Electroencephalographic (EEG) Technologist, Adams has spent nearly two decades helping patients find answers to neurological mysteries such as epilepsy, sleep disorders and tumors.

Just like most healthcare positions, Adams works in a field that is understaffed. And as a Black woman, originally from the African nation of Liberia, she is also underrepresented. Both of those truths sparked a conversation between Adams and a friend, who is a nurse. And that conversation led them to form a business venture focused on shepherding underrepresented women into the healthcare field.

“It came from a place of wanting to help,” Adams said. “It came out of necessity.”

The Yond Institute of Learning welcomed its first four Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) students to its West Valley campus in the fall of 2021. And after completing Local First Arizona’s We Rise business accelerator program for Black entrepreneurs, the organization has applied for accreditation and is poised for expansion.

“It’s been a big, big help,” Adams said of the We Rise program.

Addressing A Need

Healthcare across the country, and particularly in Arizona, is facing severe provider shortages. Trends indicate those shortages could become more severe in the coming years due to inadequate training capacity and burnout as demand grows from an aging population. Adams and her partner, who goes by Miss Gigi, recognized an opportunity to support the state’s pipeline of healthcare professionals.

Yond Institute students in a skills practice session

If they could offer an accelerated pathway for Certified Nursing Assistants, a gateway position into the healthcare field and nursing, they might not only be able to improve local healthcare capacity but also support underrepresented women as they navigate a career path. 

“The best nurses are the ones who were CNAs,” Adams said. “They are the foundation for nursing. And some are unaware of the path they’re starting when they become a CNA.”

Agnes Adams of the Yond Institute of Learning

With the Yond Institute though, Adams and Miss Gigi committed to doing something different. They weren’t going to be just another vocational school. They would anchor themselves in the West Valley, where a need for this type of school was apparent. And they would support students in ways many schools don’t, to ensure that social and personal barriers don’t hamper a student’s progress.

Classes, for example, are held in the middle of the day and on Saturdays, allowing students who are also mothers to be available for school drop-off and pick-up times. While the school doesn’t yet offer financial aid, it does offer payment plans. And, because each cohort is small by design, students receive personalized support that they wouldn’t find elsewhere.

“It’s because we can relate,” Adams said. “We’re here to get people started. We’re foreigners, so we know what it’s like to start from nothing and start over. Our mindset is opportunity.”

Both Adams and Miss Gigi have had to navigate around obstacles in their own careers, as immigrant women in a field where just 5% of their colleagues are Black, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges. And as budding business owners, the two would encounter the historic and ongoing barriers that many of Arizona’s Black business owners face as it relates to access to startup capital, mentorship and gaps in representation. 

“The startup funds were intense. Unless you’re a doctor, no one was giving loans to open a building. That was a challenge,” Adams said. “You can ignore the world we live in or you can be real and say, we’re women and we’re Black. But we found something to make it work.” 

We Rise offered the women a welcome environment to fine-tune their plans for the Yond Institute alongside other small business owners who looked like them. 

During the six-week, fee-free program, the women developed a business plan, finalized the cost of the six-week CNA program, and set goals for the future that include scaling and adding additional programs — like the EEG field that Adams specializes in.

“It was the guide we needed,” Adams said. “We’re more polished. We have our lingo now and we believe in ourselves more.”

The We Rise program concludes with a Demo Day, where participants pitch their businesses with hopes of securing $10,000 in funding. That funding, coupled with the expert guidance offered in the program, serves as a catalyst for growth among a population of business owners that are routinely denied access to capital and mentorship. 

The Yond Institute won the Demo Day for their cohort. Adams and Miss Gigi are using the prize money to go toward paying for accreditation, establishing an online learning system and eventually adding additional programs.

“We’re adding personal touch back into healthcare,” Adams said of the school’s focus. “There’s endless potential for the field.”

If you are a Black business owner and want to learn more about the We Rise business accelerator program offered by Local First Arizona, click here.