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After months of coding and therapy research, freshman Emmanuel Beakal turned a concern he had seen affect his community for years into an award-winning mental health tool.
Beakal’s MyCompass won the grand prize in February at the inaugural FCPS Seize the Moment AI Challenge, rising above projects from 1,100 other students. The online chatbot uses techniques associated with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Dialectical Behavior Therapy to simulate supportive, human-like conversations.
Beakal said he entered the competition after recognizing mental health struggles across Fairfax County, including stigma surrounding the subject in the Ethiopian American community. He also knew of people in the area who had lost their lives amid the broader crisis.
When Beakal entered McLean in the fall, he saw how a competitive student environment could intensify distress among his peers. He decided the AI challenge offered an opportunity to begin addressing the problem.
Because generic advice cannot meet every person’s needs, Beakal designed MyCompass to tailor its responses using evidence-based techniques. He wanted the bot to resemble a human conversation more closely than other AI assistants while avoiding bias and what he described as “deceptive empathy”—responses that sound caring but remain impersonal.
To reduce bias, Beakal focused on supplying the model with accurate information that would not misrepresent particular communities. When early feedback showed that MyCompass still offered overly broad advice, he spent hours studying how therapists communicate with patients.
He then established rules for the bot, directing it to keep responses under three sentences and avoid asking several questions at once.
Technology specialist Bridget Donoghue served as Beakal’s primary mentor, helping with his competition pitch and drawing attention to the risks of using artificial intelligence in mental health care. She shared studies from Brown University and the Anxiety & Depression Association of America concerning ethical risks and the responsible use of AI in therapy.
Beakal also examined data from the FCPS Youth Survey and incorporated research guidelines for CBT and DBT into the program. He said the approaches can help people reconstruct negative thoughts through cognitive restructuring—for example, shifting from “I’m not good enough” to “I may not be good enough yet.”
MyCompass uses Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 4.5 model and can operate in 10 languages, including Spanish, Chinese, Korean, French, German and Vietnamese. Beakal also added speech recognition so users can express stress aloud, noting that people in crisis may find speaking easier and more effective than typing.
Gautam Sethi, FCPS chief information technology officer and one of the competition’s judges, said MyCompass distinguished itself through both its mission and its execution. He said Beakal treated the chatbot as a supportive resource rather than a substitute for professional care and took a human-centered approach to making assistance more accessible and less intimidating.
Winning first place surprised Beakal, who had worked on the project since September.
His prize was a grant-funded $1,000 Amazon gift card. Beakal said he hopes to use the award for future projects or toward establishing a mental health nonprofit serving Ethiopian Americans in Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia.
He plans to continue working with AI on medical and mental health challenges in local communities. Echoing remarks by Superintendent Michelle Reid at the competition, Beakal said he wants people to shape artificial intelligence instead of allowing it to shape them.