Boston College

Boston College - Mako Gear

People’s Choice voting text “BC”

Mako Gear designs advanced outdoor and sporting goods featuring fully waterproof, floatable, and trackable technology, safeguarding essentials across apparel, packs, and protective medical storage.

Nearly 50 million Americans participate in watersports each year, yet enjoying time on the water often comes with a difficult tradeoff: leaving your essentials behind. Inhalers, medications, phones, and other critical technology are frequently too risky to bring along on these adventures, forcing consumers to choose among safety, convenience, and peace of mind. Introducing Mako Gear. Created to eliminate this compromise.

Mako is redefining protection on and around the water with waterproof, floatable, and trackable gear designed for real-world conditions. Built for watersports, outdoor recreation, and unpredictable environments, Mako products ensure that essential belongings remain secure, visible, and recoverable, even when fully submerged. The global waterproof bag market is currently valued at nearly $10 billion and is projected to reach $16.57 billion by 2029, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 5.37%.

Despite this rapid expansion, most existing solutions rely on water-repellent fabrics or traditional dry-bag designs that sink when submerged and offer no way to recover lost gear. Mako Gear sets the new standard. Products are constructed from fully waterproof TPU thermoplastic polyurethane, reinforced with sealed waterproof zippers and buoyant marine foam to ensure flotation in water. Integrated GPS tracking technology keeps gear from ever being truly lost, providing unmatched confidence for users in dynamic and high-risk environments. The durable yet flexible construction allows the gear to stretch and adapt to fit essential items while remaining resilient and stylish in harsh weather and rugged conditions. With Mako Gear, staying prepared no longer means leaving valuables behind. Mako Gear represents the future of waterproof, floatable, and trackable outdoor equipment, engineered to protect what matters most, wherever your adventure takes you.

Student Entrepreneur

Caroline Driscoll - Communications

Georgia Tech

Georgia Tech - Towbotics

People’s Choice voting text “GT”

TowBotics is a retrofit, remote-controlled trailer hitching system that empowers RV owners to maneuver, lift, and hitch safely - improving safety and restoring travel independence without physical strain.

TowBotics is a robotic retrofit system that transforms the most dangerous and physically demanding part of RV travel - hitching - into a safe, accessible, one-person process.

For many travel trailer owners, hitching is more than a hassle - it’s a major barrier to mobility. Aligning a 2-inch coupler onto a hitch ball requires inch-level precision while bending and kneeling between vehicle and trailer, hands inches from moving steel components. For many owners, especially those older or with limited mobility, this step is physically painful, dangerous, and often the deciding factor in whether they keep RV traveling or give it up entirely.

From over 100 interviews with RV owners, the message was consistent: hitching isn't just frustrating - it’s the reason many stop using their trailers. Owners described it as “the last step before freedom,” but also the most frustrating and riskiest one.

This is where Towbotics comes in. Towbotics replaces the traditional tongue jack with a powered robotic system that lifts and micro-aligns the trailer using a handheld remote. Its precision actuators offer inch-level positioning, while built-in safety features - like stop-on-disconnect and dead-man controls - ensure safe operation even on uneven terrain. The system retrofits directly onto standard tongue-jack mounts, requiring no truck-side changes.

In testing on full-size class 3 trailers, TowBotics enabled first-time users to consistently hitch solo in under three minutes with minimal instruction. By removing physical strain and operational guesswork, it restores confidence and independence to a generation of RVers.

Student Entrepreneurs

Aiden Devins - Mechanical Engineering
Baker Brown - Mechanical Engineering
Justin Hunter - Mechanical Engineering
Jaden Anaiah McGowan - Mechanical Engineering
Sia Michael - Computer Science

University of North Carolina

University of North Carolina - Sensible

People’s Choice voting text “UNC”

Sensible is a pad-attachable menstrual patch that turns menstrual blood into meaningful health and wellness insights.

Many people track their health using apps, wearables, and self-reported symptoms, yet one of the most information-rich monthly signals—menstrual blood—is largely ignored. As a result, individuals are left with fragmented, subjective insights into their bodies and limited tools to understand long-term wellness patterns. Sensible is a menstrual wellness platform that transforms an everyday menstrual pad into a passive source of biological insight. Using a disposable, pad-attachable patch, Sensible collects menstrual blood during normal use and converts it into simple, readable wellness signals—without requiring behavior change, clinical visits, or invasive testing.

By embedding wellness tracking into a product people already use, Sensible makes longitudinal health awareness more accessible, private, and comfortable. Over time, these signals can help individuals better understand changes in their bodies, recognize personal patterns, and make more informed wellness decisions. Sensible’s approach reimagines menstrual care as an opportunity for proactive self-understanding rather than reactive care, creating a scalable, non-invasive foundation for the future of menstrual wellness.

Student Entrepreneurs

Nandini Kanthi - Neuroscience & Community and Global Public Health
Vaishnavi Kode - Economics & Biology
Vrutika Soneji - Health Policy and Management Major

University of Notre Dame

University of Notre Dame Team - Azam Healthcare

People’s Choice voting text “ND”

Azam is a subscription-based telehealth platform providing affordable, culturally aligned care to underserved Hispanic patients in the U.S. through a cross-border network of Latin American clinicians.

An estimated 55% of the more than 65 million Hispanics living in the U.S. are inadequately insured, while 57% report persistent communication difficulties with their healthcare providers. For millions of families, this does not simply mean higher copays or longer wait times—it means delayed diagnoses and untreated chronic conditions. Language barriers, cultural mismatches, and unfamiliarity with U.S. healthcare processes often prevent patients from clearly describing symptoms, understanding medical advice, or adhering to treatment plans.

As a result, preventable conditions escalate into emergency-room visits, driving worse health outcomes for patients and significantly higher costs for the system as a whole. At Azam Health, we seek to connect underserved Hispanic communities in the U.S. with our network of Latin American physicians at the touch of a button, delivering affordable and seamless care that breaks traditional language and cultural barriers. A low-cost subscription provides patients with access to telehealth appointments with physicians, psychologists, and nutritionists. Our patients will also receive access to on demand prescriptions and a mini Electronic Health Record (EHR) with follow up care.

Student Entrepreneur

Alejandro Siman - Finance & Political Science