Harvard Innovation Labs is entering its second decade with its largest-ever venture program cohort.
This spring, 628 student teams will participate in the i-lab’s semester-long program. The i-lab provides resources and mentorship to students from all 13 Harvard schools who are interested in building an idea into a future venture.
“This semester marks the beginning of the Harvard Innovation Labs’ second decade, and it is extraordinary to see more ventures join the 2022 Spring Venture Program than we saw in the first four years of the Harvard Innovation Labs combined,” said Matt Segneri, executive director of the i-lab, in a statement. “The Venture Program’s exponential growth in recent years reflects the passion and dedication that Harvard students bring to solving some of the world’s most challenging problems.”
Among this spring’s participants are teams developing a platform connecting people of color to culturally competent health providers, a delivery service for critical medical supplies that uses drone fleets and a digital marketplace for small farmers.
Student teams will have access to virtual and in-person programming, including one-on-one meetings with i-lab advisors and industry experts from around the world. Additionally, more than 50 workshops and panels will cover topics like building an MVP, or minimal viable product, and understanding your customers, and they will include industry and stage-specific options.
Of the 628 teams accepted into the i-lab this spring, 148 were chosen as participants in the President’s Innovation Challenge. These teams were picked from students and certain alumni pursuing ideas that push the boundaries of their fields. In May, 25 of these teams will compete for $510,000 in prizes to fund their venture.
These are the 148 President’s Innovation Challenge projects, with descriptions provided by the i-lab.
Health & Life Sciences
A-SEP: Providing an affordable, accessible and accurate point of care diagnostic kit for sepsis.
Acurasset Therapeutics: Developing a cure for Hepatitis B that could rid patients of the virus within months.
Apoth: A behavior-change platform that improves mental health outcomes by facilitating client engagement, tracking behaviors and analyzing trends.
Blue Ocean Therapeutics: Developing personalized neoantigen-targeted diagnostics and cell therapies for Focal Cortical Dysplasia Type II.
Cache DNA: Providing indefinite storage and access to nucleic acid samples, reducing the space, costs and energy for biorepositories and archival data storage.
Canopy Innovations: Seeking to eliminate the language barrier in healthcare by offering tech-enabled solutions that go beyond medical interpreters.
CardioPhi: Providing AI solutions for interpreting electrocardiograms (ECG/EKGs), especially the detection and prediction of heart arrhythmias.
Carelist: A HIPAA-compliant, AI-enabled platform for building care plans, collaborating on tasks and automating follow ups.
Coprata: A smart toilet company that offers automated technology to analyze human waste.
Dear Mémé: A date-driven, semi-customized Activity Subscription Kit Service for seniors with dementia and their caregivers.
Dominant mRNA Therapies: Creating genetically dominant mRNA treatment to combat viral evolution/infection by incorporating proteins into them and destroying them from the inside.
DoriVac: Developing therapeutic cancer vaccines and preventive infectious disease vaccines using a DNA nanotechnology platform called DNA origami.
FIXUS: Detecting orthopedic diseases using the AI-based FIXUS and learning orthopedics by playing games.
FollowUp Health: Ensuring patients understand their visit and discharge plan.
HealthDeck: A mobile-first platform that makes capturing, understanding and sharing one’s complete medical history as simple as using Instagram.
Ilios Therapeutics: Leveraging molecules with strong antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties to prevent and counter neurodegeneration.
Kiikter: Creating a low-cost edible gel fortified with key micronutrients to reduce malnutrition anemia.
Melanin Doc Connect: A platform connecting people of color to culturally competent health providers and minority-specific information.
MyoExo: Developing a wearable system to monitor the cardinal signs of Parkinson’s Disease, without a clinician, and from the comfort of a person’s home.
One Therapeutics: A digital therapeutic for insomnia where patients install a mobile app that guides them through a multi-week clinical program for better sleep.
Trial Atlas: Making clinical trials more patient-centered by helping sponsors recruit, engage and retain trial participants.
Vacuum-Assisted Wound Therapy Affordable for All (VATARA): Providing an effective, low-cost, negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT) alternative to traditional NPWT devices.
Vita: A digital system that matches the supply of blood products to demand in real time.
Vitally Health: Using several layers of clinical and molecular data to map early diagnosis and digital therapies for heart disease.
ZircoPlant: Developing technologies enabling clinicians to predictably perform autogenous treatment for dental tissue regeneration.
Social Impact
.Cambio: An app that offers people without banks a way to cash in and out, receive wages and more within 200 meters of their homes.
Afya Pamoja: An SMS patient feedback service that provides performance management data for public healthcare managers in Tanzania to improve service quality.
AkademiX.ai: Helping teachers build digital skills faster with artificial intelligence.
Arda: Providing a delivery service for critical medical supplies by using drone fleets that operate within existing health care supply chains.
Barefoot Edu Foundation: Coaching principals so they can find quick and creative ways to overcome school challenges and provide children quality education.
BUILD Nigeria: Creating pathways for low-income and/or first-generation Nigerian students to study and thrive at world-class colleges globally.
CassVita: A technology that increases the shelf-life of cassava, a nutritive but rapidly deteriorating root vegetable, from three days to 18 months.
CBOH: Empowering users to control their digital health identity and share verifiable health statuses with whom they choose.
Cequest: Capturing CO2 from the air and ocean via seawater electrolysis while producing the world’s greenest hydrogen gas.
Climate & Health Equity Practice Fellowship: Training physicians representing historically marginalized communities in the Global South on health effects of climate change, advocacy and communication.
Code Your Chances: Introducing young girls to the creative uses of computer science and how they can apply their creativity to tech.
Creative Bamboo: A children's creativity and development center for children up to age 12 that delivers enrichment programs and theater productions.
Dear Loneliness: A crowdsourced art exhibit, research study and COVID-19 archival effort collecting thousands of letters on loneliness from around the world.
Debate Spaces: Connecting middle-schoolers worldwide and teaching debate to foster critical thinking, cultural empathy and civic engagement.
Earthacre Incorporated: Using remote sensing and proven regeneration techniques to restore indigenous owned lands and create differentiated carbon credits.
Electric Rehri: Making affordable, electric, modular and sustainable carts for street vendors in Indian cities.
Flame Bearers: The Women Athletes Blazing the Trail to Beijing: Elevating the voices of unsung diverse women Olympians and Paralympians.
Flare Education: Professional training, paid workforce opportunities and career development for high school students.
Freedom Cups: Getting reusable menstrual products to women by working on a buy-one give-one model that allows us to work with underprivileged communities.
GarboCarbo: Capturing carbon dioxide from power plant emissions by creating a long-term carbon storage byproduct (limestone).
Generation Girl: A nonprofit organization in Indonesia that equips young women with hard and soft skills to become future leaders through STEM-based programs.
Jamii Life: Providing home-based care for people that need additional care and training family caregivers to become accredited health workers.
Kia Kia Health: A hybrid tech-driven intervention aimed at creating access to reproductive health information and services for girls and young women.
Klara: Building an Indonesian mental health and wellness ecosystem by providing on-demand access to health care professionals and personalized self-care resources.
Knowledge to Enable Your Success (KEYS): Developing Caribbean youth into change agents and leaders through innovative programs geared at achieving collective literacy and a sustainable region.
Mandala: A DEI platform for people of color that focuses on the intersection of inclusion and well-being.
MiKashBoks (MKB): A digital social finance platform designed to support self-help, peer-based group saving and lending.
MyCode: A coding academy that aims to bring computer programming education to K-12 students across the Philippines.
Narratio: Activating, supporting and highlighting the creative expression of refugee youth through fellowships, workshops, publishing and partnerships.
National Environmental Solutions Company (NESCO): Specializing in the development of environmentally friendly biological products and technology by means of bacteria cultivation.
Net3allem: A nonprofit that provides Montessori pre-schooling for low-income students, as well as employment opportunities and sponsorships for the alumni student network.
Novustack: Creating and investing in the next generation of African innovators through training, community and opportunities to work at startups.
Pinpoint Donation: Streamlining the in-kind donation process by matching donors of household goods with charities or families that need those goods.
PODEROSAS: A sexual education program using innovative methodology to strengthen low-income youth's power of decision over their bodies, sexualities and lives.
Project Us: Using AI and bio-signal processing to unveil emotional dynamics of interactions, helping people become more inclusive leaders.
ProtectED Solutions: Providing furniture that protects against domestic terrorism and active shooter violence in schools, government buildings and offices.
Puentes Community Translators: Training young adults from low-income immigrant enclaves to become professional translators and help bridge language barriers in their communities.
Purple Point Neurodiagnostics: Addressing the gap in epilepsy diagnosis in low- and middle-income countries.
RegenerateLand: Providing a software technology platform for low-cost, transparent monitoring, reporting and verifying (MRV) of land-based carbon credits.
Residents Abroad: An online platform facilitating international rotations for doctors worldwide.
Rhymes with Reason: An e-learning app that helps students learn important English words by showcasing their existence in widely known music lyrics.
Root: A gamified educational intervention that promotes learning, feedback and regular assessment of developmentally appropriate math milestones.
Roundtable: Building the preeminent social and expert network for state/local government, starting with those in child welfare and election security.
SCRIPTern Program: Selecting minority students from Boston College, pairing them with a physician in Bosto, and teaching them to scribe notes at clinic visits.
Skew The Script: Providing free, socially relevant math curriculum to teachers.
Slam Out Loud (SOL): Using the visual and performing arts to enable children from disadvantaged backgrounds to find their voice.
Soulsmile Club: A tech nonprofit that donates up to 20% of online purchases to charities of the users' choice at no additional cost.
Stuttering Scholarship Alliance: Building the first framework to provide affordable and effective stuttering therapy.
Synses Designs: Providing 3D-printed models perceptible by the sense of touch used to improve access to STEM education for students with disabilities.
The Equity Network: Helping Black, Latinx and Native American candidates book free one-on-one conversations with professionals in their dream jobs.
The Yappie: A leading publication dedicated to tracking the rise of political power in Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities.
Thrive Industries Incorporated (THRIVE!): Software that helps local governments budget for equity and economic mobility.
Todaydream: Providing an online platform for schools, nonprofits and families to enlist diverse leading professionals who share their stories and empower youth.
UCSF Health and Human Rights Initiative: Supporting asylum seekers by offering forensic medical evaluations, performing research, training clinicians and participating in advocacy.
UpstartED: Building programs at the intersection of social and emotional learning, civic education and STEM to elevate the potential of at-risk and equity-seeking children and youth.
Vaiven: Democratizing access to finance by connecting borrowers with the best credits available in the market.
WeUnlearn: Reducing the gender gap by addressing harmful gender norms using an AI-based chatbot for teens using cognitive and behavioral psychology.
yas: A language learning app that uses AI to create brain-friendly and adaptive learning experiences.
Youth International Summit: Creating impactful, accessible leadership opportunities to students in over 100 countries through virtual programs on career skills and debate.
Open
Bemlo: Healthcare recruitment platform connecting healthcare employers with staff.
Blend: A mobile application that connects friend groups with other groups through a Tinder-style interface.
Candelytics: Building the digital infrastructure to support the visualization, analysis and sharing of 3D data.
Capsula: A nostalgic technology company with an app that changes how people live and relive by creating a home for personal, family and social memories.
Cardinal LCA: An early-stage digital tool for architects that analyzes the environmental impacts of design decisions.
CashEx: A currency exchange platform that leverages AI to help migrants transfer money with zero fees.
Chord: Making online communities more real, more impactful and more valuable to their members while saving community leaders time and effort.
Compass: An SMS platform designed to streamline patient intake, scheduling and follow-up through asynchronous automation.
Crimson Coach: A full-Harvard team providing creative academic and career exploration programs for Chinese students who plan to study abroad.
Crimson Tech: Educating doctors about data science in a less technical way.
Current Electric Incorporated: Manufacturing and providing smart, fast charging products to build out an open EV charging network supporting the transportation of tomorrow.
Cyphr: Building real-time collaboration software for music creators.
dData: Providing real-time, granular economic maps using AI for governments to make better policy decisions.
Dil Internship Project: Reshaping the narrative surrounding developing countries and making them natural destinations for skills and talent by plugging competency shortages.
Elf: A wellness app connecting body health and indoor environment by offering personalized suggestions about environmental improvements and behavioral change.
Even Cargo (ELPL): India's first women-led, last-mile logistics company, catering to clients like Amazon and Walmart.
Flow: Coffee engineered for optimal thinking — twice the energy, no jitters or caffeine crash, and improved brainpower with every sip.
Fluna Corp: Working capital financing and treasury analytics tools for African businesses.
FORAY Bioscience: Creating a future where wood-based products can be generated without cutting down a single tree.
Find Your Voice (FYVO): Helping language learners struggling with pronunciation to improve speaking skills through personalized exercises based on immersive media.
Garage Mobility: An online marketplace for auto parts and servicing in Africa.
Goo: Developing a bio-based, biodegradable 3D printing filament and running a 3D printing recycling program.
Green Alpha: Developing autonomous last-mile delivery electric vehicles.
HarvestHaul: Building a digital marketplace for farmers to sell direct-to-consumer, creating a fresher and more sustainable food shopping experience.
Helthy: Helping people with pre-diabetes and diabetes grocery shop smarter.
Hibiscus Monkey: A direct-to-consumer (DTC) venture on a mission to become India's first body specialist brand, powered by plants and ancient wellness rituals.
HiHome: The first Instant Home Matching platform, delivering the fastest and most personalized home search experience.
Hive Health: Digital health insurance for SMBs in the Philippines, providing simple, affordable, quality health plans through a data science-powered platform.
Hue: A beauty tech platform that recommends the best makeup products for shoppers’ skin tones.
Jasper Cocktails: Making zero-proof cocktails intended for drinkers and nondrinkers alike.
Kern Tutoring: Providing tier 2 and tier 3 intervention services to school districts and private tutoring for our community.
Keto Kind: A clinical nutrition brand making science-backed products to support metabolic health in patients.
La Huerta de Elisa: Creating nutritious baby food for children in Mexico by working with local farmers and cold-pressing our products to preserve nutrients.
Larsen: Facilitating feedback between coworkers and delivering a dashboard for managers to gain visibility into their teams' wellbeing.
LINK: Enabling individuals to meet new people, discover events, and have great, real-life experiences with their friends.
Lit: Language proficiency through digital stories.
Low Fuel: An app-based company that delivers gas directly to you.
Mineral Forecast: A drill hole targeting solution that dramatically improves drilling success for mining exploration teams using the data they’re already producing today.
Mission: Mentor: Using data to empower people to make better decisions, starting with college admissions.
MOVZ: The first app that uses pose estimation computer vision to provide a game-like experience when learning popular dances.
Northwood Space: Supplying interoperable low-cost satellite communication links between earth and space.
Oak Systems: A personalized shopping experience that recommends products by Black-owned brands tailored to your personal care/grooming goals.
Pathlight: Building an AI-powered hiring platform that helps jobseekers break into tech and helps companies source and vet that diverse talent.
Patient First.AI: Developing a digital health card that’s just like your bank card.
Phu’s Phone Emporium: Buying, selling and repairing phones and other electronics at an affordable price with a focus on superior customer service, quality work and integrity.
ProDream Education: Improving access to higher education for community college students.
Quidio: A short-form knowledge marketplace where users can ask a question, put a bounty on it, and get a great answer.
Raho: A hospitality chain that provides quality space and service by renovating and managing homes and apartments that have been leased from property owners.
RESE: Letting you invest in real estate just like in stocks, buying property shares from your phone with as little as $25 and earning from rent and appreciation.
Sellwithotto.ai: Automating personalized cold outreach by finding the intersection points between the sender and receiver.
Shi & Lewis: A Ph.D. network that helps investors and industry practitioners access cutting-edge academic resources.
Soxton: Connecting the digitally native world with aging adults.
Stochastic: Making the best AI accessible to everyone.
Syzygy Space: Seeking to clear small, hard-to-track debris out of Earth's crucial orbits in order to make Space safer and more accessible to all.
The NRI Nation: A news network catering to the Non-Resident Indian (NRI) population worldwide, covering the local and international NRI community.
Think and Speak Academy: Offering world-class online debate and argumentation training to young people all around the world.
Tomo Labs: Engineered to restore balance and function to your body after drinking with ingredients that help attack the underlying causes of discomfort.
Toppings: Free Food w/ Friends: Solving the delivery problem of high fees by empowering local members of the community to deliver when they are going out for food/groceries.
Trove Market: Diverting excess shelf-stable, packaged food away from landfills and into consumers' homes.
Tutu: Helping high school and college students in China effectively explore majors and career pathways that fit them best.
tys: Providing the easiest way to book an appointment for time-pressed women in need of a manicure.
UCNLEARN: Empowering teachers to deliver reading intervention effectively using a tablet for learning one-on-one, in groups, and independently.
Zesti: A social application that helps college students connect with each other, find things to do near campus and save money at the same time.
