Fifteen winners have been awarded tens of thousands of dollars in this year's Harvard President’s Innovation Challenge, which recognizes entrepreneurs and innovators from all 13 of Harvard’s schools.
The annual startup pitch competition is for Harvard students and some alumni, who compete live for a share of over $500,000. This year, 15 ventures won awards totaling $517,000.
Awards range from $75,000 to a share of a $17,000 prize, depending on the category and idea. Winners of the ingenuity awards are teams with innovative, potentially world-changing ideas that aren’t yet fully formed, while the $75,000 winners are ventures that are ready for the next step. Ideas are scored on problem and customer definition, business model, product or prototype, and impact.
This year’s pitch finale, featuring 25 finalists, was held on May 1 at Klarman Hall on the Harvard Business School campus.
Bios of the winners below were provided to BostInno by Harvard Innovation Labs.
$75,000 award recipients
- Beaver Health (Harvard College): Engaging older loved ones in stimulating, culturally responsive activities to boost cognition and quality of life.
- EndoShunt Medical Inc. (Harvard Business School, Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences): Controlling abdominal bleeding in trauma surgery with an innovative medical device.
- MesaQuantum (Harvard Business School, Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences): Developing chip-scale quantum sensors for next-generation GPS capabilities in position, navigation, and timing.
- Solara (Harvard Business School): Providing on-demand solar irrigation to Indian farmers, increasing their access to affordable, reliable, and clean irrigation.
- Stratagen Bio (Harvard Business School): Transforming MRI scans into a tool for objective clinical decision-making and quantitative biomarker assessment.
$25,000 award recipients
- Bullseye Biosciences (Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences): Transforming therapeutics discovery and expediting the development of life-saving medicines.
- Crop Diagnostix (Harvard Business School): Building the future of predictive agriculture with patented, AI-powered gene expression technology.
- MabLab (Harvard College): Designing five-in-one test strips to detect the five deadliest lacing agents in recreational drugs.
- Saturday Art Class (Harvard Graduate School of Education): Unleashing the creative potential of marginalized children in India with visual arts education that promotes the development of social-emotional skills.
- TecHustle (Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Harvard Law School): Creating Africa's largest small business network for global trade, providing financial services and market access.
Ingenuity Award winners
- Alba (Harvard Graduate School of Design): Empowering visually-impaired individuals to detect the onset of their period with a tactile menstrual wipe.
- MicroAvionics (Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences): Developing a propulsion mechanism that can fly in near-space, a region that is inaccessible to aircraft and satellites.
- PerioSense (Harvard School of Dental Medicine): Making early diagnosis of gum disease more accessible and efficient while saving time and money for patients and providers.
- reer (Harvard Graduate School of Design): Creating 3D-printed designer furniture that can be tailored to personalized needs and traded-in for renewal.
- Sprxng (Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences): Developing holistic period care solutions through data-driven menstrual research and innovation.
