Magdala Noel is a member of the Queens WIBO Cohort at the Tech Incubator at Queens College, with the encouragement of the cohort’s co-leads, Fran Holt and Ying Zhou, and the help of her follow cohort member, Magdala won $10,000 to use to build her business. Congratulations!
What is your business about?
Hand in Hand Speech Therapy is a mobile multilingual pediatric speech-language pathology practice serving Queens. We provide evaluations and therapy in English and in each family’s native language, so children are heard in the language they actually live in. Our mission is simple: every child — especially those from multilingual and underserved families — deserves to be evaluated and supported in their full voice, not half of it. Our tagline says it best “From First Word to Full Conversation — Finding Your Voice is a Journey We Take Hand in Hand.”
What was the competition you joined and how did you learn about it?
I competed in the Queens Tech & Innovation Challenge, run by the Queens Economic Development Corporation — a pitch competition that supports founders building tech-enabled, innovation-driven businesses rooted right here in Queens. I heard about it through my small business network, and the moment I saw they were looking for founders solving real community problems with scalable models, I knew Hand in Hand belonged in that room. In a borough where over 300 languages are spoken and more than half the population is bilingual, multilingual pediatric speech therapy isn’t a niche — it’s a need. I wanted to stand on that stage and make the case for why this work matters.
What was the competition like and what was it like when you learned you won?
From the moment finalists were announced, I had one month to sharpen every part of my pitch — the problem, the model, the numbers, the vision. I practiced night and day. I rehearsed in the car between evaluations, in the mirror before bed, in front of anyone who would listen.
What surprised me most was how calm I felt when I finally stepped on stage. The nerves I had braced for never came. Pitching in front of judges and a room full of other founders didn’t feel intimidating — it felt like a culmination of all of my work thus far. Every late night and early morning had been preparing me for that exact moment.
And when I found out I won, I was overwhelmed in the best way. As a solo founder building a multilingual practice from the ground up, that kind of validation hits differently. It tells you that the work is seen. The families are seen. You are seen.
What role did WIBO play, and who in your cohort helped you?
WIBO has been foundational. I knew it the moment I sat in the information session with Ramon Gil. I felt that same spark that pushed me to launch Hand in Hand back in 2023. Every class since then has reignited that same fire.
The curriculum forced me to slow down and actually build the business infrastructure I had been carrying around in my head — pricing strategy, profit planning, sales planning, overhead analysis. Units 6 through 8 reshaped how I think about pricing and profitability, and the Rule of Thirds framework changed how I evaluate every contract decision I make. By the time I stepped onto the QEDC stage, I wasn’t pitching a vision — I was pitching a business with real numbers behind it. That’s because of WIBO!
But the people are what make WIBO unforgettable. My course instructor, Francine Holt, pushed me, asked the hard questions, connected me to the right people in her network, celebrated the small wins, and — most importantly — shifted my mindset from employee to CEO. My co-instructor, Ying Zhou, was the technical backbone behind every problem I brought to her, equipping me with the CRM platforms and tools that let a small practice like mine compete with much larger pediatric agencies.
There’s something powerful about being in a room of business owners who get it, surrounded by mentors whose only goal is to see you win.
Why was this win important to you or your business?
This win matters because it’s part of a much bigger transition. I built Hand in Hand on agency subcontracts, and I’m now moving toward growing a team of multilingual clinicians. Wins like this give me the credibility, the capital, and the confidence to make that leap.
But more than that — every time a multilingual practice gets recognized, it sends a message to the families we serve: your child deserves an evaluator who speaks their language. Your child’s first words matter, in whatever language they come in. That’s what I’m building. That’s why this win matters.