Meet the 24 Semi-Finalists of the 2023 New Venture Competition
Get ready for an exciting showdown as 24 talented teams of BU students and recent alumni advance to the New Venture Competition semi-finals! Chosen from a pool of more than 80 applications with innovative start-up ideas spanning new technology, media platforms, nonprofits, and more, these contenders are eager to make their mark.
Both the final round and the grand finale of the competition will be open to the public. Stay tuned for more details by subscribing to our newsletter.
Let’s meet the teams!
General Track
This track is open to for-profit ideas from all sectors
Astra Wellbeing
Description
Astra Wellbeing is an SMS-based employee recognition platform dedicated to improving the well-being and burnout of frontline healthcare employees through messages of positive reinforcement and enhanced intra-hospital connectivity.
Problem
The post-pandemic American Healthcare system is in an alarming position as it battles record-high clinician burnout rates, resulting in a negative strain on healthcare workers’ well-being – causing unprecedented job attrition rates. In the words of the US Chief Surgeon General, “we are looking at a future without enough critical health workers… putting our entire healthcare system at risk.” This is causing management to be under fire, employee morale at all-time lows, severe mental health conditions, and patients showing up to hospitals unable to receive proper care. Furthermore, the National Academy of Medicine publicly addressed that our hospitals desperately need “recognition programs” that effectively address employee wellbeing to reduce healthcare worker burnout.
Solution
Our solution consists of an innovative SMS-based employee recognition platform (SaaS) consisting of the following:
- Daily Messages: our platform sends daily tailored positive quotes/messages (SMS texts) and other heartwarming media (video links, patient stories, and article links) directly to the healthcare employee’s cell phone.
- Message Sharing: allows healthcare employees to seamlessly share a preset message of appreciation, a message of recognition, or their own custom message with any colleague at their hospital.
- Patient-Employee Network: patients, their visitors, and/or the general public can submit positive messages via a QR code/form on our website. All messages are monitored.
The best part is that no app/software is required to use the platform! Learn more at: www.astrawellbeing.com
Team
Josh Bruehwiler’s (QST ‘24)
Taha Moukara (QST ‘24)
Johar Singh’s (QST ‘24)
AutoPCB
Description
Circuit design automation software
Problem
With current software, electrical circuit design is still a manual, time-intensive, and error-prone process. In addition, there is no existing graphical software with full support for parameterization and reuse of subcircuits and error checking that comes along with it.
Solution
Our proposed solution is software that automatically creates a circuit board directly from a high-level block diagram the user inputs and produces standard design outputs: printed circuit board files, source files, schematics, bill of materials, and microcontroller firmware header files. We have developed a web-based frontend and a python backend to perform this.
Team
Caspian Chaharom (CAS’23)
Chloa Adamowicz (CAS’23)
Harunobu Ishii (MET’22)
Kelsey Mann (CFA’23)
Enlaye
Description
Enlaye is a brand-new cloud-based contract writing, negotiation, and deep-collaboration platform that radically modernizes contracting and negotiation. It does so by restructuring contracts as collaborative networks, taking inspiration from what makes the brain so fast and powerful: the ability to work in parallel across a shared network architecture.
Problem
Despite being the most ubiquitous business interaction, drafting and negotiating contracts is cumbersome and antiquated. While technology has continued to evolve, contracting still depends on legacy tools like paper, Word files, and PDFs over email. This industry standard is expensive, linear, rigid, and non-collaborative, making contracting high-friction, opaque and adversarial. Negotiations require constant back-and-forth between clients, lawyers, and counterparties who are trying to agree but are impeded by the very nature of the process. A lack of innovation forces a bottleneck on the drafting and negotiating of changes, which is done sequentially, with either side keeping track of every edit and file version on their own. This tax on time, productivity, and money hurts everyone.
Solution
Enlaye is a brand-new cloud-based contract writing, negotiation, and deep-collaboration platform that radically modernizes contracting. It does so by restructuring contracts as networks, taking inspiration from what makes the brain so fast and powerful: the ability to work in parallel over a network architecture. By using network links, Enlaye can check for conflicts between clauses, centralize key terms and metrics, and allow for real-time reporting on progress. Enlaye allows users to work collaboratively and remotely on different sections of the contract, with the full understanding of the impact of a change or a new clause on the rest of the document. Its power lies in the ability to keep contracts clear and logical, streamline negotiation processes, and bring people together in agreement.
Team
Stamatios Liapis (MED’23)
Philippe Rival MBA Candidate at Harvard Business School (2023)
GeneTree
Description
GeneTree is a secure web-based service that improves how patients collect and share medical information with their physicians. Unlike EMR providers such as NextGen Healthcare and Epic Systems, GeneTree increases the patient’s accessibility to their medical records by making it easy for them to collect, share, and retain their data even after switching health providers.
Problem
The major problem that GeneTree is solving is the lack of accessibility and portability of patient medical information, primarily due to the privatization of the healthcare industry. A related issue is the lack of visibility and accessibility to family medical history. Because there’s a massive knowledge gap when it comes to family medical history among the American population, patients are not receiving optimal screening or treatment for some of the most severe conditions. In fact, 9 of the 10 leading causes of death in the US are linked to genetic factors.
Solution
Unlike EMR providers like NextGen Healthcare and Epic Systems, GeneTree offers patients & healthcare providers increased accessibility to medical records by making it easy to collect, share, and retain their data – even if patients switch healthcare providers/medical insurance plans. The service will be action-oriented, providing data-specific recommendations to physicians on which screening/treatment options to prescribe for the patient’s condition(s). To adhere to HIPAA, GeneTree will provide the feature of varying levels of accessibility to the patient’s medical history. To ensure patient safety, the patient will send their profile to their physician via GeneTree. Doctors will track risk factors better, schedule screenings sooner, and diagnose more accurately and quickly
Team
Serena Theobald (CDS’25)
Luiza Decenzi (QST’25)
Ke Li (CAS’23)
INIA Biosciences
Description
INIA is developing a smart wearable bioelectronic device to reduce inflammation non-invasively.
Problem
Treatments for the majority of patients with psoriasis are not effective. 80M people suffer from Psoriasis, 60M have mild disease and 20M have moderate or severe disease.
If patients have mild disease, they are prescribed topical treatment and phototherapy. Many patients stop using their medication. If diagnosed with severe disease, they qualify for biologics and immunosuppressant drugs. Despite this, 53% of patients do not want to take these drugs because of their side effects. Therefore, novel treatments are needed for patients suffering from psoriasis.
Solution
INIA has created a patent-pending wearable ultrasound device to non-invasively modulate the immune system with just 5 min of daily treatment, reducing the lifetime accumulation of side effects from immunosuppressive drugs. In addition, the smart wearable device includes a digital health platform to enable patient monitoring, giving the clinic access to all patient compliance data. This platform gives patients a sense of security and physicians a source of intelligence to inform their treatment plans.
Team
Shen Ning, M.D./Ph.D. (MED’24/MGH)
Dragan Savic, MBA (University of Oxford)
Latent Knowledge
Description
Latent Knowledge is a research performance and search visualization tool using AI to drive better outcomes.
Problem
The quality of the literature discovery is the limiting factor for the pace of innovation. While working as research scientists, we faced a daily challenge: the literature search problem. Given current search engine technology and design, it’s easy to miss critical content when searching for new, related articles. Further, to get a full picture of the literature we need to manually replicate searches across many databases. As we dug into this niche problem, we were led to a bigger problem surrounding information overload and institutional knowledge management. We believe there too much information and technology has not been invented to make it all useful.
Solution
Our solution makes the world’s information more useful by a new method to match and visualize relevant articles across disparate domains of literature. LitView is an AI-based research platform that provides a new way to build searches, connect databases, and visualize lists of related documents.
Team
Edwin Angjeli (QST’23)
William Svoboda (Princeton University: B.A. in Computer Science, 2022)
Jamie Reilly (M.Ed. BU’15)
LIRA
Description
Online marketplace and enterprise procurement solutions which connect the shipping company (buyer) with curated vendors (seller)
Problem
The current procurement procedures in Indonesia and the majority of other maritime businesses in the Asia-Pacific create communication difficulties, potential for fraud, and time-consuming procedures for the buyer. On the other hand, on the supplier’s (the seller’s) side, there are limited sales channels, lengthy lead payment times, and limited visibility into demand. Shipserv, the leading maritime procurement platform, discovered that the majority of maritime companies spent 30% more than the actual cost on the traditional procurement process. Given Indonesia’s average number of transactions alone, they could lose $67,800,000,000 per year.
Solution
Our solution is a B2B Online Marketplace and Enterprise Procurement Solution, which connects the buyer with their curated suppliers that reduce OPEX on the buyer side and grow revenue on the seller side.
Team
Tri Aldityo (MET’23)
Reza Arnanda (Trisakti Institute of Transportation and Logistics, 2023)
OpenLake
Description
We are standardizing, consolidating, and accelerating the arduous process of data fetching and cleaning. We are doing so via a multi-purpose, automated data pipeline utilizing AWS technologies that make it extremely cost and time efficient to standardize all forms of data representation. This will manifest itself as a conceptual data-lake containing all public sector information.
Problem
Currently, the US government and many international entities such as UNESCO, NATO, and the UN provide petabytes of valuable data, statistics, and analytics. These data span nearly every topic, providing a history of statistics for any given area of interest as well as valuable, real-time insights. (Ex: flight patterns and weather data to safely charter a flight course). The problem: this data is virtually inaccessible and requires a strong programming background to access, clean, standardize and use. In addition, each agency has a different white paper which doesn’t allow for cross-data fetching, creating a huge programmatic barrier to entry. As a result, there is no standardized way for organizations to access the massive shop of public-sector data that could power the next innovative solution.
Solution
Our solution is a constant-time SaaS application (software as a service) to standardize, consolidate, and accelerate access to all public-sector information. Our programmatic solution operates at the theoretical limit of computational efficiency – it does not get better than our model. At each step of the way, our proprietary data pipeline will handle all of the pain points that go into fetching data from the public sector. In addition, we have included cross-data compatibility. We do this by using an underlying schema for all forms of data representation. Using OpenLake, organizations can quickly and accurately grab data from multiple sources through one standardized access point – a method of accessing data that previously did not exist.
Team
Milan Tahliani (CAS’24)
Cygnus Wang (CAS’23)
Pardesh Dhaka (CAS’26)
Snazz
Description
Snazz is a digital health and wellness technology company. Snazz offers a suite of sophisticated but easy-to-use tools that passively help users build better phone usage habits and reduce their time spent mindlessly scrolling – all in the most accessible format ever.
Problem
Young adults are more addicted to their devices and media content than ever and find it nearly impossible to reduce their usage and build better habits. The average person between (18 – 30) will spend over 6 hours on their phones daily, and over 80% of that use will consume highly addictive media on platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. This has serious negative implications on people’s quality of life and strongly influences factors such as sleep, productivity, focus, social isolation, and depression. As young adults, the impact of phone addiction is tangible among our peers, and it inspired us to go and solve this problem. After interviewing over 300 young adults, we learned that people seek new solutions.
Solution
The Snazz Screen Time application will help users easily reduce mindless scrolling and limit digital distractions. Our suite of passive tools lets users build healthier habits with their devices and reduce usage on their own. Our core feature is customizable focus “sessions,” which limits access to addictive apps on recurring schedules or when needed. For example, a user can proactively set a schedule that blocks access to applications to varying degrees throughout the week. Snazz also comes with supporting features such as adaptive suggestions, reporting, notifications, and milestones. Our strong data suggests our suite of features will save users nearly 2 hours per day.
Team
Justin DiRaddo (QST’23)
Amal Radhakrishnan (CAS’19)
Lucan Laurence (CAS’23)
Orang Room Digital – Software Engineering Firm
StanchionSaver
Description
StanchionSaver protects a mountain bike suspension fork’s most damage-prone part: its stanchions.
Problem
The stanchion is a critical component of mountain bike suspension forks. Stanchions allow the fork to operate smoothly and absorb bumps. When stanchions get damaged, mountain bikers are left with front suspension that performs poorly or, with enough damage, not at all. It costs, on average, $600 to fix the stanchion or buy a new one. Forks can be as expensive as $2,000. In addition, 1 out of 5 mountain bikers reported that they had damaged their stanchion at least once in their biking career, while 1 out of 3 said they knew someone who scratched it. So more than 50% of mountain bikers have either scratched their stanchion or know someone who did, making it a big problem among mountain bikers.
Solution
StanchionSaver is a plastic (or plastic-like material) accessory that mounts to the lower part of the suspension fork with a universal design that allows it to be compatible with all common suspension fork models. StanchionSaver protects the stanchion from rocks, dirt, and other damage due to crashes. The only point where it touches the suspension fork is where it mounts. Otherwise, it does not touch or interfere with the suspension fork’s operation as it absorbs bumps. StanchionSaver is profiled to protect the outer-facing portion of the suspension fork, which is most vulnerable to damage. This optimized design keeps StanchionSaver’s form factor sleek without impeding its ability to protect stanchions.
Team
Justin Nardella (QST’22)
Maria Gorskikh (QST’23)
Synsory Bio
Description
We create smart therapeutics that sense disease and conditionally respond with powerful treatments.
Problem
Accounting for over 600,000 deaths a year, cancer remains the second leading cause of death in the US. Deaths are largely due to the tumors’ ability to suppress the immune cells nearby. To combat tumor immunosuppression, clinicians injected naturally-occurring immune-stimulating proteins with promising results, but at a steep cost of systemic toxicity because the drug was immune-stimulating the entire body. In retrospect, this outcome isn’t surprising – the body’s immune-stimulating proteins are highly controlled and act locally, not systemically. Consequently, these powerful treatments were shelved.
If we could instruct these proteins to act only in a targeted area, we could unlock the positive effects of these drugs without dangerous side effects.
Solution
To solve the problem of off-target toxicity of promising immune-stimulating proteins, we’re creating protein “switches” that can sense disease markers and conditionally respond with powerful treatments. Therefore, toxic drugs are not active systemically and only activate at the tumor.
To achieve this, our technology creates input-output protein switches with the output activity conditional on binding another input biomolecule. In addition, our technology’s core mechanism is modular, meaning input markers and therapeutic output biomolecules are interchangeable.
In our first therapeutic, we’re creating a switchable version of a characterized immunostimulatory protein that yielded promising therapeutic outcomes when delivered systemically, but had significant off-target toxicity.
Team
Nathan Tague (ENG’23)
Elliot Tague, PhD (ENG’21)
Vakta
Description
Vakta is a humanless medical interpreter to improve patient safety and communication efficiency and reduce costs.
Problem
Medical translators and interpreters play a crucial role in effective communication between healthcare providers and patients, but there is a shortage of well-qualified human interpreters. The demand for medical interpreters is projected to grow at 20% annually for the next decade. In addition, a majority of patient-doctor conversations that rely on a third person for interpretation are time-consuming. Most importantly, miscommunication can result in adverse events, endangering patient safety. This is causing an enormous burden on the healthcare system as insurance providers are paying excessively to cover longer patient visits.
Solution
We have developed a universal language interpreter which intelligently transcribes, corrects, and translates spoken conversations between patients and care providers. Our technology provides easy-to-use humanlike conversation and potentially eliminates the need for human interpreters. Conversations in different languages will be seamless between the patient and the care provider. They do not need a third person to be in the room or available virtually for interpretation. Our digital healthcare solution will improve patient safety and communication efficiency and reduce costs related to interpreter services.
Team
Dinesh Malav (QST’25)
Dr. Vijaya Kolachalama, PhD, FAHA, Associate Professor, BU
Social Track
This track is for ideas whose main objective is to provide large-scale, positive economic, social, cultural, or environmental change and/or whose mission focuses on a significant segment of traditionally underserved, neglected, or disadvantaged populations.
Amor Plantae
Description
We are developing a wellness and rehabilitation center to address PTSD and substance abuse, particularly for treatment-resistant cases. Initial targets are Veterans, victims of sexual violence, and refugees, but trauma sufferers also include “high functioning” adults. Ketamine is legal and other psychedelic medicines are currently going through FDA Phase 2 and Phase 3 trials, with positive results.
Problem
We strive to improve both physical and mental wellbeing, addressing the root causes of traumas that are frequently expressed as emotional imbalances. Millions of Americans suffer from traumatic experiences throughout their lives, including: PTSD, sexual violence, depression, and anxiety. These scarring experiences often lead to self-medication and eventually substance abuse, most frequently with alcohol, tobacco and opiates. Over 30M Americans suffer Treatment resistant PTSD, its comorbidities and substance abuse. Psychedelic treatments have been researched by >13 major universities and there are several FDA trials showing positive results that have not been achieved through traditional western medicine [psychology and pharmaceuticals].
Solution
Our proposal is a 4 month protocol of virtual visits for mental, physical, emotional and nutritional coaching. In the middle of this protocol, we would bring them on-site to a doctor’s office [and eventually a european style spa space in a rural area] for a heavy dose of Ketamine under the supervision of Psychedelic Assisted Therapists. For these plant medicine treatments, it is critical to give at least 3 therapy sessions before and after the psychedelic dosing, which we would do as part of the virtual visits. As other plant medicines become legalized in MA, we would add psilocybin, MDMA, ayahuasca and LSD to our treatment options.
Team
L. George Sulak (QST’23)
Andrea Lubrano (MET’14)
Captain Jarelle Badger (University of Georgia, 2005)
Consensus
Description
Consensus is a web-based and sociable mobile application that provides a simple, intuitive platform to track the United States legislative agenda and activities of elected officials. With a “Bumble for Congress” function, it allows users to see whether they actually “match” with their representative.
Problem
Low civic engagement among youth spreads polarization and misinformation crippling national politics. Many young adults want to get involved but lack the information, support, and explicit opportunities. Only half of our youth say they are “as well-informed as most people” and only 40% say they feel well-qualified to participate in politics. This speaks to a lack of systemic, developmental support for youth to develop as voters and civic actors and find their voice within democracy.
Civic engagement must be supported as most school curricula provide a superficial understanding of legislative processes. Also, opportunities for civic learning remain highly unequal, reflecting vast racial and economic disparities. Engaging young voters is the long-term solution to protecting a diverse democracy.
Solution
A web-based and sociable mobile application that provides a simple, intuitive platform to track the United States legislative agenda and activities of elected officials. The aim is to deliver the information in an interactive and visually-engaging manner to encourage users to make a daily habit of tracking the political agenda. The app will keep a profile for each officer and detailed graphic results of their voting history which users will be able to apply many filters on such as year, topic, or domestic/foreign. A polling section will present wedge issues, current bills, and their sponsors in Bumble-like profile cards allowing users to swipe and indicate their support. Users will be able to view whether they are a “match” with their representative on the issue item and contact them.
Team
Şahika Aydınol (CAS’24)
Kadir Cetin
Denta-Dispense
Description
Denta-Dispense is a touchless dispenser for common single-use dental supplies that reduces waste and improves sanitation in dental offices.
Problem
Cotton rolls and dental gauze are some of the most commonly used and wasted disposable supplies in any dental office. The problem lies in the fact that offices, in the interest of time, often take more of these items than they need for each patient and end up throwing away the extra ones for safety reasons. While cheap, these items create a tremendous amount of waste that we as dentists and dental students should strive to eliminate. Multiple dentists and dental students have expressed their frustration with this issue in our conversations, and in fact, this issue was also emphasized by Dr. Donna Hackley from Harvard University in their recent seminar about sustainability.
Solution
My proposed solution is a touchless dispenser that can dispense these items on demand; eliminating the issues noted above while improving sanitation and time efficiency at the same time.
Team
Alireza Eghdamian (DMD’26)
Dollars & $ense
Description
Dollars & Sense is an edtech platform that provides a fun, easy-to-use behavior management system for K-5 that provides repetitive and consistent reinforcement of financial literacy concepts over the years. The concept scales in complexity & grows with the child to build financial literacy knowledge so they can go on to learn advanced concepts in middle school, high school and college.
Problem
We are addressing the social and economic problem of a lack of financial literacy in the United States and economic inequality by beginning to equip students starting in elementary school with basic financial literacy knowledge to be further built on during middle and high school. Finances affect every area of a person’s life from relationships (divorce), safe housing, the likelihood of returning to a domestic violence situation, the ability to save for retirement, and massive amounts of student loan and credit card debt. By equipping people with the knowledge to better navigate these issues at an early age, we are improving the quality of life of each person and instituting the foundation of economic equality into society.
Solution
Our proposed solution is an edtech application that teaches financial literacy through the classroom behavior management system for grades K-5. The program grows with the student and can be used in the classroom in a curriculum-adjacent way so it doesn’t dominate class time but also offers repetitive exposure to financial concepts throughout the year instead of only once or twice a year.
Team
Molly Inclán (QST’22)
Katie Britton (Clemson University, 2014)
Glamour City Technologies
Description
We provide a platform and software to help secondhand store owners to grow their online presence and sell more clothes online. For secondhand clothing buyers, we gather all the stores into a user-friendly and engaging platform (web & mobile app), maximizing their choices and experiences in online secondhand apparel shopping.
Problem
The fashion industry has polluted our environment so much. Among all sustainable fashion solutions, selling and purchasing secondhand clothes is the most direct way to reduce waste and decrease new/low-quality clothes being purchased. But the resale industry mainly consists of stores that adopt aging and low technology that, to some extent, prevent them from scaling up their businesses. Even though local thrift stores have established offline businesses for decades, most have no or low online presence due to limited experience in online marketing and e-commerce operation. In the current market, there are no easy or cost-effective platforms for local stores to build a professional online presence and track inventory efficiently.
Solution
For secondhand clothing buyers, we aim to provide a user-friendly website and mobile app that enables them to buy clothes from different stores in one station. For secondhand store owners, we provide an all-in-one platform that includes web and mobile site builders, inventory systems, analytical backend, POS systems, and logistic helpers. The inventory tools include the AI inventory software, where the software can turn photos of clothes into features of the clothes (e.g., color, category, occasions) and auto-generating the listing of the clothes without the store owners manually writing the descriptions. The innovative inventory system allows the store owners only need to take the 20s per product to take pictures, and the software will generate clothing descriptions and printing SKUs.
Team
Qi Xia (COM’23)
Yitao Sun
Yunan Liao
Hamara
Description
Hamara aims to bring the South Asian bazaar experience online. Hamara is South Asia’s largest bazaar directory.
Problem
Navigating and shopping at bazaars is a tiring and inefficient process for shoppers and stores.
Local South Asians shop at bazaars for nearly every festival. Shopping at bazaars involves going from store to store outdoors. Without a referral, window shopping is the only option as the majority of stores are not on google maps nor have websites. Many stores have complicated addresses. For shoppers, this means they’re missing out on thousands of stores and products. For store owners, this means lost revenue. Stores lack developed inventory, order, and customer management systems leaving them frantically working to fulfill unique orders for dozens of customers at a time.
Solution
Our proposed solution is an online platform that brings the South Asian bazaar experience online. Initially, Hamara will be a database that brings small stores within the larger bazaars, online, giving them a virtual presence for the very first time. Shoppers on the other hand will be able to search and find what stores they would like to visit via keywords, location, and/or products they are looking for.
Team
Sohail Mohammed (ENG’25)
Eesha Ulhaq (Wilfrid Laurier University, 2026)
Money Her Way
Description
Money Her Way is an educational platform that combines financial planning with psychology in order to personalize women’s value-based money goals and track behavioral financial patterns. Our goal is to give women a reason to learn about finance when they’re young instead of when they have to, by making the platform interesting and easy to use.
Problem
People are bombarded with financial data but are left starving for tailored financial advice. Women tend to be prone to lifestyle creep and begin living paycheck to paycheck. This is due to the fact women feel the need to keep up with the Jones more than men because of materialism and influencers. There is also a lack of resources in schools teaching basic personal finance, leaving people confused once they hit the real world. Women tend to be forced to learn about finance when something bad happens to their lives since they are not educated, and being left in the dark when it comes to family finances can be detrimental.
Solution
An educational platform that combines financial planning with psychology in order to personalize women’s value-based money goals and track behavioral financial patterns.
Team
CEO: Rebecca Pino (QST’23)
CMO: Julia Marino
CTO: Michael Fabing
PalmFronds
Description
PalmFronds aims to help underprivileged students in Nigeria achieve self-sustaining careers.
Problem
Despite the vast potential of growing youths in Nigeria, they face many challenges in gaining the education they desire and the livelihood they need to live sufficiently. In the former instance, children are often forced to abandon their education due to a lack of finances. In the latter instance, youths in Nigeria-including those who have completed post-graduate courses- struggle to find jobs, leading to an unemployment rate of a staggering 35%. Both a lack of education and a lack of post-graduate opportunities are significantly affecting the well-being of the nation as a whole. Sadly, this has played no small role in the reality of most Nigerians subsisting on the equivalent of two dollars a day.
Solution
We plan to tackle the issue of lack of education and unemployment by providing scholarships, mentorship, and apprenticeships to young Nigerian students.
We have three main aims:
1.) sponsor students graduating from junior secondary school to cover their tuition through the completion of their higher education,
2.) connect our scholars with mentors from within the country and the greater diaspora at large who can support them,
and 3.)provide scholars with postgraduate opportunities through universities and sponsors in different industries, either to further their education or to gain vocational training.
Our goal is to provide a stable educational environment and create a network where Nigerian students can pursue fulfilling careers.
Team
Ernest Dimbo
Chinwe
Nneka Agba is an Igbo professor at Harvard and BU
Stephanie Anakwe
ReCover
Description
ReCover is a community-based platform for individuals seeking help with addiction. It connects users with sponsors who guide them through the recovery journey, providing access to tailored resources and events. ReCover offers a personalized, comprehensive, and streamlined approach to addiction recovery, making it a convenient and accessible option for those seeking help.
Problem
ReCover is working to address the issue of addiction, specifically the lack of access to resources and support for individuals seeking recovery. Addiction is a major public health crisis, affecting millions of people globally. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse reported that in the United States alone, approximately 21 million people have a substance use disorder. Additionally, substance abuse treatment is underutilized, with only 10% of individuals who need treatment for a substance use disorder receiving it. The impact of addiction extends beyond just the individual, affecting families, communities, and society as a whole
Solution
Our proposed solution is ReCover. ReCover is a web-based platform that provides a solution for individuals struggling with addiction. The platform connects people with addiction to individuals willing to support and guide them in their recovery journey, serving as a sponsor. ReCover provides resources, promotes sober events, and offers a safe, non-judgmental environment for individuals seeking help with addiction. The solution is innovative as it combines technology and community support to provide a comprehensive approach to overcoming addiction.
Team
Krish Shah
Anish Sinha
Shop Swapp
Description
Shop Swapp is a second-hand online marketplace exclusive for BU students. Students can upload their used or unwanted clothes and accessories for other students to buy and pick up safely and efficiently on campus and in person.
Problem
The problem we are addressing is fast fashion. The average American throws away 72 pounds of textiles every year. Only 12% of the material in clothing is recyclable, so most of these items end up in landfills and will sit there for the next couple of decades. It is vital for our planet that we take steps to stop this. Additionally, secondhand online marketplaces currently work because they either require shipping or you are buying from strangers. This puts college students in danger as there is no way to protect against these strangers from the internet.
Solution
Our proposed solution is a secondhand online marketplace exclusively for BU students. First, students must log in with their BU email to create an account. Then, they can list their clothes and upload photos for other students to buy. Once a student decides to buy an item from another student, they will pay on the app, and the two students can message each other to find a time to meet, which will likely be a neutral spot on campus.
Team
Mikayla Crowley (ENG’23)
Katie Hill (ENG’23)
Sustainabull
Description
Sustainabull is a hub for environmentalists and those looking to implement sustainable habits into their daily lives.
Problem
The effects of climate change are devastating our planet every day. Weekly, we see record-breaking natural disasters destroying homes and taking lives. We also see an increased crime rate, which has been linked to rising global temperatures. We don’t have time to waste. By 2050, we could be facing temperatures that cause serious health problems. These are just a few of the impacts climate change is having, and if we don’t make serious changes now, we will suffer when these effects are permanent. Climate change affects everyone, but especially underrepresented communities. There are many reasons that people don’t prioritize sustainability, but some are that it’s inconvenient, expensive, and overwhelming. My goal is to minimize these barriers.
Solution
Sustainabull is an app that assists the average person in implementing sustainable habits into their everyday lifestyle. Users can find a supportive community of environmentalists, engage in billboard posts to obtain or share information, keep up with the latest sustainability news, and even purchase products from sustainable companies straight from the app. These tools all serve to motivate the customer to be more sustainable by making it convenient, inexpensive, and trendy. Sustainabull will give the customer an estimate of how much waste they’ve reduced from challenges they’ve completed, habits they’ve formed, and products they’ve purchased. By providing a variety of sustainable tools all in one app, I hope to make sustainability fun and habitual, rather than a chore.
Team
Gina Ellis (QST’25)
The Sweaty Penguin, LLC.
Description
The Sweaty Penguin is a PBS award-winning climate program that attempts to depoliticize and add comedy to solutions-based environmental news. Published on podcast platforms, The Sweaty Penguin produces weekly content that engages with a wide range of climate topics from a lighthearted perspective.
Problem
Environmental news often provides opinions, facts, and misinformation. Two-thirds of Americans experience climate anxiety. There’s a lack of bipartisanship in bringing stories to those people. Heavy information online often leaves people paralyzed. Unbiased educational resources are scarce, making it difficult for institutions to educate on climate. Traditional programming does not avoid controversy, which may lead to inaccurate representations. It’s becoming difficult to reach demographics interested in environmental problems: Millennials and Gen Z. Research by The McCarthy Firm states that 84% of 18-34 year olds no longer respond to traditional advertising. Advertisers aiming to reach those individuals fail to find effective outlets.
Solution
The Sweaty Penguin seeks to deliver environmental programming that is nonpartisan, hopeful, and funny to inspire action and engagement in audiences most heavily impacted by climate anxiety. Cultivating a space for businesses, schools, and individuals to listen to impartial and digestible content will help grow solutions-focused climate education, while simultaneously assisting companies and events that promote eco conscious products and activities reach the audiences that will leave the greatest impact. Our program seeks to use programming episodes and media tools to share unbiased and relevant climate education, cultivating the common ground needed for solutions to move forward.
Team
Hallie Cordingley (CAS’24)
Melina Nguyen (COM’24)
Ethan Brown (COM’21)
Megan Antone (COM’21)
Maddy Schmidt (COM’21)
Sabrina Rollings (COM’21)
Shannon Damiano (COM’22)
Madeleine Salman (COM’22)
Olivia Amitay (COM’22)
Owen Reith (University of Victoria, 2024)
