Announcing the winners for Collider Cup XIV!
The Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology (SCET) at UC Berkeley hosted Collider Cup XIV on May 6, 2024. The biannual competition showcased innovative student projects, from AI neurotech to cybersecurity, developed through SCET courses.
1st place and At-Large Bid winner – Playvision
- Team: Ender Aguilar, Marc Zoghby, Anish Gupta, Eric Ho, Pulak Dugar, Bryant Wen, Luis vi ya real, and Nathan McNaughton
- Course: ENGIN 183C-003 – SportsTech, Entrepreneurship & the Future of Sports | A Berkeley Changemaker® Course
- What it is: “Automation of game film analysis”
Using technology to expand the effectiveness of sports training, Playvision’s Cup-winning innovation uses computer vision to analyze and tag football sports plays, making the game analysis process more efficient for coaching staff to focus on other aspects of game preparation. With their technology, teams receive instant, detailed insights on plays, giving their technique a competitive edge. Playvision’s victory is all the more exciting because they were the At-Large Bid winner, securing the wildcard seat, which gave them the opportunity to present at Collider Cup.
2nd place – SimpleCell
- Team: Sehej Bindra, Joseph Makram, Tejas Sreedhar, Hana Trinh, Arvind Vivekanandan and Tayeba Chowdhury
- Course: ENGIN 183C-002 – Transforming Brain Health with Neurotech | A Berkeley Changemaker® Course
- What it is: “It’s time to keep it Simple”
A major obstacle in the bioinformatics field is the time it takes to analyze an experiment. Not only are existing platforms like ChatGPT unintuitive due to their black-box format, they also fail 60% of the time. SimpleCell eliminates this burden through their conversational, natural-language system that enables LLMs to work with other platforms, fitting into bioinformatic workflows.
3rd place – Aqua AI
- Team: Peyton McQueen, Isabelle Stadden, Forrest Frazier, Tommy Roder, Ashlyn Fiorilli, Stephanie Salesky and Emily Gaantris
- Course: ENGIN 183C-003 – SportsTech, Entrepreneurship & the Future of Sports | A Berkeley Changemaker® Course
- What it is: “Setting New Standards with AI Swim Coaching”
Aqua AI is a team made up of competitive Cal swimmers who understand that the sport requires finely tuned coaching for success. Their product uses AI to give targeted and insightful feedback using swim videos, to analyze everything from stroke count to tempo. Its specific technique feedback allows swimmers to see rapid improvement in their style, something their coaches are unable to do with the number of athletes they coach. The team is currently training their model using strokes from Cal’s top swim team to give them a competitive advantage with data from the world’s top swimmers.
Most Innovative and People’s Choice – Cal Milk
- Team: Nouf Alhazmi and Natalia Shamoon
- Course: Design of Plant-Based Foods | A Berkeley Changemaker® Course
- What it is: “Milk minus the cow”
Aiming to design an effective plant-based food solution, Most Innovative and People’s Choice winner, Cal Milk, produces a vital milk protein called Lactoferrin through precision fermentation with microalgae – no cows required. This safe and efficient method of production has picked up traction at local cafes due to its cost-effectiveness.
Alumni Expo Winner – Optigenix
This year, SCET introduced the Alumni Expo, inviting any student who has taken an SCET course, and therefore are now SCET alumni, back to competitively pitch their solutions before the event. Participants voted Optigenix as the winning team.
Optigenix
- Course: ENGIN 183C-003 – SportsTech, Entrepreneurship & the Future of Sports | A Berkeley Changemaker® Course
- Team: Jai Williams and Gabe Abbes
- What it is: “Biologically tailored supplement subscriptions for high performance athletes”
Optigenix was founded by two Cal athletes, Cal high jumper Jai Williams (Business Administration ’23) and cross country runner Gabe Abbes (Business Administration ’24), who realized they were taking the exact same supplements despite playing different sports and having different injuries. High-intensity sports make every athlete’s journey with health and injuries unique. Optigenix offers tailored analysis and health recommendations for future athletes, using blood and genetic testing to provide individualized supplement packages.
Collider Cup XIV presenters
While not every team can win the Collider Cup, these teams also presented innovative solutions that have the potential to solve big problems for consumers.
Dart
- Course: ENGIN 183E – Technology Entrepreneurship
- Team: Saarth Shah, Lakshya Saraf, Ediz Ertekin, Augustin Tsang
- What it is: “AI receptionist for clinics.”
DeepSafe
- Course: ENGIN 183D – Product Management
- Team: Nils Johan Tabard, Grace Clendenin, Manan Bhargava, Nupur Agarwal, Sri Chandramouli
- What it is: “Revolutionizing video call security against deepfakes.”
AlkeLink
- Course: ENGIN 183B – Berkeley Method of Entrepreneurship Bootcamp
- Team: Rashmi Varma, Khanh Bao Thai, Daniel Sitompul
- What it is: “Transforming access to essential medicine through data.”
Re:Dish
- Course: ENGIN 183 – Deplastify the Planet: How to Master the Sustainable Transition | A Berkeley Changemaker® Course
- Team: Shradha Gupta, Favour Madubuko, Nicholas Dejung, Airada Songpatthanayuth
- What it is: “A team of Berkeley students working with the company ‘Re:Dish’ to create a reusable plastic supply chain.”
Homemore
- Course: ENGIN 183 – Designing Startups to Transform Society | A Berkeley Changemaker® Course
- Team: Airada Songpatthanayuth, Jason Braanen, Maher Hasan, Saman Ali
- What it is: “Filling empty rooms, one student at a time.”
Collider Cup features one venture project from each of its courses every semester. While teams chosen for the Collider Cup were chosen for a reason and certainly are some of the most visionary, SCET courses produce over one hundred innovative projects every semester.
SCET Teaching Awards
At SCET, experiential and hands-on learning is the cornerstone, led by our team of seasoned instructors, who provide expert feedback to help students develop their ideas. In addition to faculty, SCET hires course assistants to run the classes and ensure student innovators have the best environment to learn. In addition to acknowledging our entire teaching staff, SCET gave special recognition to an instructor and course coordinator at Collider Cup XIII.
Best Instructor Award
This semester’s SCET Best Instructor Award went to Anne Cocquyt, instructor for the Changemaker course ENGIN 183 Deplastify the Planet: How to Master the Sustainable Transition.
“Twenty years ago I swore I would not step into the footsteps of my grandparents, parents, and both of my sisters, who are all teachers,” Cocquyt said. “And here I am today. I wanted to business and startups and now I have the chance to do both!”
Cocquyt thanked SCET for giving her the opportunity to hone teaching skills and the founders of Deplastify the Planet for honoring “such an important topic for our planet.”
Best Course Coordinator Award
This semester’s SCET Best Course Coordinator Award went to Kelly Chou, also from Deplastify the Planet.
“Kelly put students first always! I’ve never had a course coordinator take our feedback so seriously. Her slides and her teaching styles are always easy to follow – there [is] never information given where I didn’t think it was relevant to the course. I constantly feel heard by Kelly,” a student said.
Fall Course Preview
During the deliberation period, SCET took the opportunity to showcase its upcoming Fall 2024 course offerings, which are currently open for enrollment for Berkeley students:
- A. Richard Newton Series | A Berkeley Changemaker® Course – ENGIN 183A/283A | 1 units
- Berkeley Method of Entrepreneurship Bootcamp – ENGIN 183B | 2 units
- Technology Entrepreneurship – ENGIN 183E | 3 units
- Exploring Sustainable Food Production – ENGIN 198-002 | 2 units
- Connected Life: How Mobile/AI/Internet of Things Will Improve Our Lives – ENGIN 183C-001 | 4 units
- Disaster Technology: Creating Innovative Solutions to Environmental Change – ENGIN 183C-002 | 4 units
- Product Design & Customer Needfinding: Alternative Meat – ENGIN 183C-004 | 4 units
- Private: Deplastify the Planet: How to Master the Sustainable Transition | A Berkeley Changemaker® Course – ENGIN 183/283-001 | 3 units
- Design Thinking for Entrepreneurs – ENGIN 183/283-002 | 2 units
- Startup Catalyst: Let’s Speed Up Your Startup – ENGIN 183/283-003 | 3 units
- Future of Technology: How Innovators Critically Examine Game Changing and Time Wasting Technologies – ENGIN 183/283-004 | 3 units
- Growth Marketing for Aspiring Entrepreneurs – ENGIN 183/283-005 | 2 units
- Applied Resilience | Your Innovation Springboard – ENGIN 183/283-006 | 3 units
Judges & Host
A special acknowledgment to our esteemed judges Jay Onda from Marubeni Ventures Inc., Berkeley alumna Sandy Diao from Descript, and Stacey King from Cal Innovation Fund for their fantastic feedback to students at the event.
Also, we want to recognize our student emcees, Benecia Jude and Rachel Eizner, for their amazing work to keep the audience engaged and entertained!
That’s a wrap! Cheers to everyone’s efforts on making Collider Cup XIV a wonderful success.