Nyla Pollard ’21

As a former student-athlete on the William & Mary Women’s Basketball team, Nyla Pollard ’21 understands what it takes to succeed on the court. Now, she knows what it’s like to succeed as an entrepreneur in the digital world.

As a student at W&M, she started thinking of ways coaches could see how compatible a team would be before forming and how to make the recruitment process easier on students. She also founded W&M’s first student-athlete mentorship program through the Student Athlete Advisory Council. After graduation, she used her education, sports and sociology knowledge to form Ballin AI. The app creates a personalized development plan for high school students based on their evaluation report, allowing athletes to track their growth. Pollard wanted “a better way to connect the right high school basketball players with the right college program,” she says. In addition to scores, the app provides compatibility insights to help coaches predict which recruits will thrive in their program, since a team’s chemistry is beneficial to its success.

Nyla continues to stay connected to W&M while paying it forward. She serves as a mentor to current students through the Entrepreneurship Hub and spoke about her experience with fellow alumni at Mosaic Weekend 2025.

Learn more about Nyla

• Read about her in a W&M Alumni Magazine profile, AI Is a New Ball Game.