Announcing the winners for Collider Cup XIII!
The Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology (SCET) at UC Berkeley hosted Collider Cup XIII on December 8, 2023. The competitive venture showcase highlighted a plethora of innovative student projects coming from SCET courses, ranging from algae-based egg replacements to advanced AI compression technologies.
1st place – Nize
- Team: Logan Dickey and Tarun Prakash
- Course: ENGIN 198 – Startup Catalyst
- What it is: “The all-in-one platform for K-12 schools.”
Teaching is challenging enough without the administrative burden of attendance-taking. Nize reports that this task alone results in 4,000 lost teaching hours per school annually. Furthermore, inaccuracies in attendance records not only disadvantage students but also lead to financial losses for schools. Nize’s intuitive, all-in-one platform is designed to simplify these administrative tasks, thereby reducing hassles for both administrators and students, and ultimately saving money for school districts.
2nd place & People’s Choice Award – TAIBA (Berkeley Algae)
- Team: Nouf Alhazmi, Pinkie Temcharoen, Dohyun Park, Sofia Ahued Herrera
- Course: ENGIN 183 – AltMeat: Sustainable Solutions in Global Food Systems
- What it is: “Crack the limit, not the eggs: an egg replacer for green baking breakthroughs.”
Egg production contributes to significant environmental impact, generating 376 million tons of CO₂ emissions annually, with 34 million tons attributed to the baking industry alone. Team Berkeley Algae’s ‘TAIBA’ product presents an innovative solution: an algae-based egg alternative that is not only affordable and vegan but also baker-approved. This product aims to capture a share of the $22 billion egg market specifically in the baking sector, offering a sustainable alternative.
3rd place – TensorZipper
- Team: Franklin Huang, David Schouten, Mathieu Despres, Esmanur Atasoy, Fabio Sobirey, Frederic Puzicha, Ruofeng (Edison) Wang, Solean Ducrocq, Hiva Mohammadzadeh
- Course: ENGIN 183C – Connected Life: How Mobile/AI/Internet of Things Will Improve Our Lives
- What it is: “Smaller, faster, cheaper AI models”
Since the debut of large language models like ChatGPT in late 2022, their societal impact has been profound. Concurrently, the exponential growth in AI model sizes demands sustainable and efficient solutions. TensorZipper addresses this challenge with research-backed compression technology. Their approach results in AI models that are half the original size, four times less expensive, and one and a half times faster, marking a significant advancement in AI model efficiency.
Most Innovative – Oilnosis
- Team: Kate Ye, Jenny Kim, Santiago Andres Cuevas, Michelle Chow
- Course: ENGIN 183C- Disaster Technology: Creating Innovative Solutions to Environmental Change
- What it is: “Oilnosis is a hydrocarbon detection strip that picks up on the presence of crude oil pollutants in exposed seafood flesh within seconds.”
Annually, over 343 million gallons of oil spill into our oceans, wreaking environmental havoc. In addition to the severe environmental impact, this results in an average income decline of 75% for fishermen in affected regions. Current methods for testing seafood for oil contamination are both expensive and time-consuming. Oilnosis introduces a simple, innovative solution: a test strip that can be attached to a keychain, providing near-instant results. This tool makes it easy and accessible for fishermen to quickly check their catch for oil contamination.
At-Large Bid Winner
For the first time ever, SCET held an “At-Large Bid” pre-event before Collider Cup. In previous years, instructors were allowed to send only one team to present at Collider Cup. The At-Large Bid event gave instructors the opportunity to send an additional team to compete for a chance to present at Collider Cup. All those who attended the event had the opportunity to engage with the startups, ask questions and act as the judges to vote for their favorite pitch to send to the Collider Cup. After a very close competition, Tweenvest came out on top and presented their solution at Collider Cup XIII.
Tweenvest
- Course: ENGIN 198 – Startup Catalyst
- Team: Pepe Tatay-Sanguesa
- What it is: “Tweenvest is a website that helps individual investors make sensible stock analysis in minutes rather than hours.”
Collider Cup XIII 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.
Nomadic Drones
- Course: ENGIN 183E – Technology Entrepreneurship
- Team: Andreas Moldskred, Victoria Dinov, Lauritz Weil, Daniel Quiroz, and Neel Shah
- What it is: “We provide scalable and reliable power line inspection with nomadic autonomous drones.”
ReYolk
- Course: ENGIN 183C – Product Design & Customer Needfinding: Alternative Meat
- Team: Hawk Azordegan, Daniell Kyle Galang, Lindsay Fokwa Djouka, and Vlada Alexa Zahlada
- What it is: “Upcycling waste streams to lay the groundwork for the sustainable future of food, one egg at a time.”
PulsaFi
- Course: ENGIN 183B – Berkeley Method of Entrepreneurship Bootcamp
- Team: Zackary Atlas
- What it is: “Making it possible for anyone with a bank account to obtain credit.”
Team Deplastify
- Course: ENGIN 183 – Deplastify the Planet: How to Master the Sustainable Transition | A Berkeley Changemaker® Course
- Team: Mingzhou Gu, Divya Srinivasan, Allie McAndrews, Fernando Yonathan Bustamante Mattos, and Hyaejin Byun
- What it is: “A team of Berkeley students working with the Canadian company ‘Cascades’ to help them solve recyclability of boxes for shipping frozen produce.”
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 innovative, it is still important to recognize that SCET is not able to showcase every team, but there are more than one hundred projects produced in SCET classes each 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 Gert Christen, instructor for ENGIN 183C Connected Life: How Mobile/AI/Internet of Things Will Improve Our Lives.
“To be honest I never fill out any of these forms, but I have been waiting to do this one. Professor Christen is one of the most caring and supportive professors I have ever met. He stood up for my group even when there were struggles. He spent extra time during the week with us to do what is necessary for my group to grow.”
Best Course Coordinator Award
This semester’s SCET Best Course Coordinator Award, went to Anderson Lam, for his work as a course coordinator for ENGIN 183B – Berkeley Method of Entrepreneurship Bootcamp
“Anderson Lam acted as my mentor from the first to the very last second for the preparation of my pitch. He was honest and clear with his feedback, keeping in mind the purpose of our participation as Internationals.”
Spring Course Preview
During the deliberation period, SCET took the opportunity to showcase its upcoming Spring 2024 course offerings, which are currently open for enrollment for Berkeley students:
- A. Richard Newton Lecture Series | A Berkeley Changemaker® Course (ENGIN 183A/283A | 1 units)
- Berkeley Method of Entrepreneurship Bootcamp (ENGIN 183B | 2 units)
- Leadership Exploration and Discovery (LEAD) | A Berkeley Changemaker® Course (ENGIN 183/283-003 | 3 units)
- Product Management (ENGIN 183D | 3 units)
- Technology Entrepreneurship (ENGIN 183E | 3 units)
- Design of Plant-Based Foods | A Berkeley Changemaker® Course (ENGIN 183C-001 | 4 units)
- Designing Startups to Transform Society (ENGIN 183C-004 | 4 units)
- SportsTech, Entrepreneurship & the Future of Sports | A Berkeley Changemaker® Course (ENGIN 183C-003 | 4 units)
- Transforming Brain Health with Neurotech | A Berkeley Changemaker® Course (ENGIN 183C-002 | 4 units)
- Deplastify the Planet: How to Master the Sustainable Transition | A Berkeley Changemaker® Course (ENGIN 183/283 | 3 units)
- Future of Technology: How Innovators Critically Examine Game Changing and Time Wasting Technologies (ENGIN 183/283 | 3 units)
- Patent Law and Strategy for Innovators and Entrepreneurs (ENGIN 183-002/ENGIN 283-002 | 3 units)
Judges & Host
A special acknowledgment to our esteemed judges Jay Onda from Marubeni Ventures Inc., Berkeley alumna Tamanna Khemani from General Catalyst, and Frank Hysa from Capgemini for their fantastic feedback to students at the event.
Also, we want to recognize our student emcee, Benecia Jude for her amazing work to keep the audience engaged and entertained!
That’s a wrap! Cheers to everyone’s efforts on making Collider Cup XIII a wonderful success.