Winning teams seek to disrupt education, healthcare, ride-share markets

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Four teams of Purdue University student entrepreneurs won a combined $50,000 from the Purdue Innovates Incubator during the finals of the 2026 New Venture Challenge. The annual six-workshop series prepares startups for market entry and fundraising.

Ten teams were named finalists and showcased their technology at demonstration booths. The top five teams had five minutes to pitch their solutions to judges followed by three-minute Q&As. Active Purdue students were eligible to compete. Twenty-five teams participated in the series.

Eight people face the camera as students hold five oversized checks.
Startup companies led by Purdue University students — CalcGPT, echoSURE, Kova Group and VitaWave Tech — won $50,000 in cash prizes during the 2026 New Venture Challenge organized by the Purdue Innovates Incubator. (Purdue Research Foundation photo/Greta Bell)

“The New Venture Challenge prepares participants to craft their value proposition, develop a go-to-market strategy and build a finance model that investors will find compelling,” said Justin Renfrow, Incubator director. “Everyone at Incubator is dedicated to supporting Purdue students’ entrepreneurial drive to recognize problems and bring solutions to the market.”

Submissions for the 2027 New Venture Challenge will be solicited in January.

Winning Teams

Here are the winning teams, their members, their awards and a summary of their products:

First Place and Crowd Favorite: echoSURE Inc., $22,500

echoSURE is developing a novel medical device to accurately verify pediatric nasogastric feeding tube placement, eliminating delays and improving patient safety. By addressing traditional limitations, echoSURE improves clinical efficiency and reduces healthcare costs. Team members are Raishma Anwar, College of Engineering, College of Health and Human Sciences and the Certificate in Entrepreneurship and Innovation; and Angelica Gonzalez and Kate Stanton, College of Engineering.

Anwar said the New Venture Challenge award will allow her, Gonzalez and Stanton to advance their medical device.

“We will use this money to finalize our Minimum Viable Product, or MVP, contract lab spaces to continue testing, and file our utility patent and more provisional patents,” she said.

Second Place: VitaWave Tech Inc., $15,000

VitaWave tackles blood pressure monitoring challenges that affect American adults with hypertension, around 116 million people. VitaWave is developing a clinically accurate, cuffless, intermittent continuous remote in-ear blood pressure monitoring solution to improve hypertension management. Team members are T. Hingba, Polytechnic Institute, and Ankit Shah, College of Engineering.

Hingba said winning second place in the New Venture Challenge validates that the market is ready for medical-grade, cuffless blood pressure monitoring.

“It also strengthens our credibility with strategic investors and clinical partners as we close our $1.2 million preseed round and prepare for our FDA 510(k) Class II presubmission package,” he said. “We are building momentum toward our (University of Colorado Anschutz) preeclampsia pilot and moving closer to deploying across medical centers and the 800,000 pregnant women and 35.5 million chronic kidney disease patients who need reliable home monitoring.”

Third Place: CalcGPT, $10,000

CalcGPT is an AI tutor that helps students understand math instead of just giving answers. It uses a chat interface combined with visual tools like Desmos and a whiteboard to make learning interactive. Team members are Omkar Mamidpalliwar, College of Science, and Nihar Bagkar, New York University.

Mamidpalliwar said the New Venture Challenge award allows him and Bagkar to scale their infrastructure to help many more students love mathematics.

“It will give us the flexibility to prototype with various technologies and create tools that push the frontier of STEM education,” he said. “Our next milestones involve refining our AI’s tutoring capabilities and exploring new ways to help students effectively master complex math concepts.”

Best Pitch: Kova Group Inc., $2,500

Kova Group is a student-focused ride-share app that enables verified college students to book affordable short trips and intercity rides with transparent per-seat pricing, built to be safe, reliable and community-driven. Team members are Hassan Berbich, College of Engineering and the Certificate in Entrepreneurship and Innovation; Mehdi El Mansar and Victoria Mesropyan, College of Engineering; and Ghali Berbich, ETH Zurich.

Hassan Berbich said the New Venture Challenge award further strengthens his, El Mansar’s, Mesropyan’s and Ghali Berbich’s confidence in their ride-share app.

“We will use the money from winning Best Pitch to pay for Kova Group’s insurance,” he said.

Honor Roll of Finalists

Other New Venture Challenge finalists were:

Oppit. Oppit is a lightweight industrial IoT platform that brings legacy manufacturing machines online using low-cost, wireless sensors and a real-time data dashboard. Oppit collects machine-level metrics from equipment that traditionally has no connectivity, providing manufacturers with real-time visibility, alerts and performance insights. Liam Scherb, a student in the College of Engineering and the Certificate in Entrepreneurship and Innovation, created Oppit.

Originix. Originix bridges the gap between specialty grain mills and farmers by digitizing and centralizing the direct sourcing process. Originix unifies contracts, documentation and relationship management into a single platform, combining several key data streams to eliminate fragmented systems and reduce operational friction. Team members are Jonah Armstrong, Avery Pound and Asa Dolbow Vann, College of Agriculture.

Rothalion. Rothalion’s compact, fuel-flexible microturbine power generator uses rotating detonation combustion to achieve pressure-gain operation, enabling high power density, improved efficiency, and modular dispatchable power for data centers and microgrids. Team members are Kevin Boes, Bobby Albertson and Avidh Bavkar, College of Engineering.

Strctr. Strctr is a construction estimation platform that streamlines the bidding process for contractors. Using a vector database-driven system built around Work Breakdown Structures (WBS), Strctr automates material takeoffs and cost estimation helping contractors bid faster and more accurately without relying on manual spreadsheets. Aditya Abhang, a student in the College of Engineering, created Strctr.

UltraSense. UltraSense is a wearable, saltwater-durable necklace/chain designed for surfers, swimmers and active users who spend a lot of time outside. An app interfaces with the necklace to set ultraviolet light thresholds and provide information about the wearer’s exposure. Sean McMillan, a student in the College of Engineering, created UltraSense.

UPlate. UPlate connects to college dining hall menus and automatically filters out foods based on the user’s dietary restrictions. It utilizes generative AI trained on dietary research papers to suggest the best meals to help users achieve their macro goals. Team members are Nathaniel Kemme Nash and Jeffrey Tseng, College of Science and the Certificate in Entrepreneurship and Innovation; Rishit Sharma, College of Science; and Madhav Variyam, Mitch Daniels School of Business.

About Purdue Innovates Incubator

Purdue Innovates Incubator is the front door to the rich ecosystem of programs and services designed to help early-stage startups take their next step. Programs provide settings for cohort work and one-on-one consultations. Content includes clarifying problems from the customer’s perspective, developing a business model, conducting customer discovery interviews, team building, determining regulatory pathways and legal structures, and more. Purdue alumni and community members interested in becoming mentors are invited to contact the Incubator team.

About Purdue University

Purdue University is a public research university leading with excellence at scale. Ranked among top 10 public universities in the United States, Purdue discovers, disseminates and deploys knowledge with a quality and at a scale second to none. More than 106,000 students study at Purdue across multiple campuses, locations and modalities, including more than 57,000 at our main campus locations in West Lafayette and Indianapolis. Committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue’s main campus has frozen tuition 14 years in a row. See how Purdue never stops in the persistent pursuit of the next giant leap — including its integrated, comprehensive Indianapolis urban expansion; the Mitch Daniels School of Business; Purdue Computes; and the One Health initiative — at https://www.purdue.edu/president/strategic-initiatives.

Media contact: Steve Martin, sgmartin@prf.org