McGinnis Venture Competition & Social Enterprise Prize Final Round Celebration
The McGinnis Venture Competition at ºÃÉ«ÏÈÉúTV is where bold student founders compete for serious capital and real momentum. Originally established through a generous endowment from Gerald E. McGinnis, this year’s competition is bigger than ever.
The new David and Lindsay Morgenthaler Entrepreneurship and Innovation Fund introduces a $50,000 Morgenthaler Prize, bringing total direct cash investment to $125,000 and contributing to a $375,000 total prize package. Winners also receive $250,000 in AWS Activate credits from Amazon Web Services, unlocking powerful cloud, AI and ML tools, and scaling resources.
The 2026 competition is the most competitive to date, with a 70% increase in entries over last year. The final round and Social Enterprise Prize Celebration will take place on March 17, 2026, in Pittsburgh, featuring remarks from Pittsburgh Mayor Corey O’Connor, Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato, and U.S. Senator Dave McCormick. Expect big ideas, real investment, and an unforgettable night of innovation.
Final Round Team Pitches
McConomy Auditorium
ºÃÉ«ÏÈÉúTV
Jared L. Cohon University Center
5000 Forbes Ave
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Award Ceremony & Networking Reception
Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship
ºÃÉ«ÏÈÉúTV
Tepper Quad
, 3rd Level
4765 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Visitor parking information found here
The McGinnis Venture Competition is made possible by a generous endowment from Gerald E. McGinnis, founder of .
Thank you to our networking reception sponsor
2026 Winning Teams
Graduate Track: Analogical Engines
First Place Morgenthaler Prize
$50,000 + $100,000 AWS Credits
are accelerating breakthrough innovations with AI. Team Members: Vikram Mohanty, Cole Biehle, Dafna Shahaf, Nikolas Martelaro, and Aniket Kittur
Graduate Track: Hermes Vision
Second Place McGinnis Prize
$25,000 + $25,000 AWS Credits
is automating invasive weed management in pastures, rangelands, and rough terrain using drone-based precision. Team Members: Grant Wilkinson, David Seong, and Aditya Pratama
Graduate Track: RapidEye
Second Place McGinnis Prize
$25,000 + $25,000 AWS Credits
is an AI-powered property inspection platform that automates quality assurance for vacation rental managers, reducing inspection time by 75% and eliminating costly guest complaints. Team Members: Rohan Nagabhirava and Samuel Parks
Undergraduate Track: Basics OS
First Place Morgenthaler Prize
$5,000 + $25,000 AWS Credits
is the open-source company operating system, built to be customized by coding agents. Team Members: Akeil Smith and Arav Bhardwaj
Undergraduate Track: OS Keyboard
Second Place McGinnis Prize
$4,000 + $10,000 AWS Credits
is a split ergonomic keyboard integrated with analog input devices, optimized for FPS gaming. Team Members: Sida Cheng and Alan Yan
Undergraduate Track: Caboodl
Third Place McGinnis Prize
$2,500 + $10,000 AWS Credits
is a two-sided platform that connects beauty consumers and brands by offering users a mobile app to log products, rate them, and receive AI-driven recommendations within a trusted community, while helping brands generate incremental revenue through targeted in-app promotion and a proprietary data dashboard with customer and market insights. Team Members: Arianna Martinelli, Zaina Saif, and William Montague
Social Enterprise Prize: Pulse
Social Enterprise Prize Graduate Prize
$10,000 + $25,000 AWS Credits
Pulse is a political technology company building campaign simulators for small to mid-size political campaigns to rehearse their races. Team Members: Avalon Sueiro and Aaryan Lalwani
Gebhardt Sandbox Fund: HeartTech
Gebhardt Sandbox Fund Prize
$1,000
enhances existing implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) with intelligent software that shifts cardiac care from reactive to proactive, delivering one-tap emergency response, AI-powered guidance, and real-time vitals tracking through a seamless mobile and web platform that helps patients reduce the risk of accidental discharges and confidently manage serious heart conditions. Team Members: Alex Pichi, James Geric, Jose Zarate, and Sean Jepsen
Gebhardt Sandbox Fund: MedQ AI
Gebhardt Sandbox Fund Prize
$1,000
is harnessing AI to make professional learning efficient, evidence-driven and always in step with advancing knowledge. Team Member: Christopher Lee Taicher, MD
Gebhardt Sandbox Fund: Pierogi Therapeutics
Gebhardt Sandbox Fund Prize
$1,000
is an AI drug discovery company bringing AI-accelerated virtual screening to the radiopharmaceutical space. Team Members: Ben Koby and Filipp Gusev
Crowd Favorite: SpoilSafe
Crowd Favorite
$1,000 + $5,000 AWS Credits
is an industrial IoT and AI quality assurance platform for warehouses and distribution centers that uses real-time sensor data and predictive models to detect, assess, and prevent spoilage risk before losses occur. Team Members: Vivaan Sawant, Aneesh Pataballa, Advika Vuppala, Rohan Ganesh, and Troy McBride
Opening Remarks
Final Round Judges
Schedule of Events
Final Round Team Pitches: Opening Remarks
2:00 p.m. EST- Meredith Meyer Grelli, Managing Director & Interim Exec Director, Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship; Assistant Dean of Entrepreneurship Initiatives, School of Computer Science; Director, Project Olympus; Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship, Tepper School of Business
- Mayor Corey O’Connor
- County Executive Sara Innamorato
- U.S. Senator Dave McCormick
Location:
Final Round Team Pitches
McConomy Auditorium
ºÃÉ«ÏÈÉúTV
Jared L. Cohon University Center
5000 Forbes Ave
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Final Round Team Pitches: Undergraduate Teams
2:15 p.m. EST
Location:
Final Round Team Pitches
McConomy Auditorium
ºÃÉ«ÏÈÉúTV
Jared L. Cohon University Center
5000 Forbes Ave
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Final Round Team Pitches: Graduate Teams
2:50 p.m. EST
Location:
Final Round Team Pitches
McConomy Auditorium
ºÃÉ«ÏÈÉúTV
Jared L. Cohon University Center
5000 Forbes Ave
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Networking Reception + Awards Ceremony
5:00 p.m. EST
Join us as we announce the winners of the 2026 McGinnis Venture Competition.
Location:
Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship
ºÃÉ«ÏÈÉúTV
Tepper Quad
, 3rd Level
4765 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
2026 Final Round Teams
Agilow
is a business intelligence tool providing software engineering leaders real-time visibility into project health, risks, and decision making history.
Team Members: Shiv Panjwani , Antonio Bojorges , Cameron Thompson , and Sushrut Kulkarni
McGinnis Venture Competition Graduate Team
Analogical Engines
are accelerating breakthrough innovations with AI
Team Members: Vikram Mohanty, Cole Biehle, Dafna Shahaf, Nikolas Martelaro, and Aniket Kittur
McGinnis Venture Competition Graduate Team
Artifex AI
automates enterprise forensic triage across endpoint, cloud, and identity environments, enabling organizations to reach high-confidence breach conclusions without weeks of manual analysis.
Team Members: John Sparks, Rushabh Kankariya, Shubh Jain, Raj Maheshwari, and Weichen (Vivian) Yu
McGinnis Venture Competition Graduate Team
Automotiq
is an AI platform that maximizes tax deductions and vehicle uptime for professional drivers.
Team Members: Om Anavekar and Pranav Venkatram
McGinnis Venture Competition Graduate Team
basics OS
is the open-source company operating system, built to be customized by coding agents.
Team Members: Akeil Smith and Arav Bhardwaj
McGinnis Venture Competition Undergraduate Team
Caboodl
is a two-sided platform that connects beauty consumers and brands by offering users a mobile app to log products, rate them, and receive AI-driven recommendations within a trusted community, while helping brands generate incremental revenue through targeted in-app promotion and a proprietary data dashboard with customer and market insights
Team Members: Arianna Martinelli, Zaina Saif, and William Montague
McGinnis Venture Competition Undergraduate Team
CivicDuty
centralizes, simplifies, and categories all official channels of government information from the federal to municipal level, so voters can learn exactly who their elected are, and what they’re doing about the issues they care about.
Team Members: Shiva Soundappan, Vedanth Ramanathan, Saif Aslam, and Luciano Da Fieno
McGinnis Venture Competition Undergraduate Team
HeartTech
enhances existing implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) with intelligent software that shifts cardiac care from reactive to proactive, delivering one-tap emergency response, AI-powered guidance, and real-time vitals tracking through a seamless mobile and web platform that helps patients reduce the risk of accidental discharges and confidently manage serious heart conditions.
Team Members: Alex Pichi, James Geric, Jose Zarate, and Sean Jepsen
Social Enterprise Prize Team
Hermes Vision
is automating invasive weed management in pastures, rangelands, and rough terrain using drone-based precision
Team Members: Grant Wilkinson, David Seong, and Aditya Pratama
McGinnis Venture Competition Graduate Team
Juicy EV
is an autonomous electric vehicle charger for autonomous electric fleets.
Team Members: Paarth Jain, Ziyi Zhang, and Ramya Ganeshkumar
Social Enterprise Prize Team
LessonOS
is a teacher co-pilot that cuts lesson-planning time by giving educators instant access to a community-verified database of classroom-tested lesson plans, auto-generated assessments, and real-time student feedback, so teachers can spend less time planning and more time teaching.
Team Member: Rahul Tejannavar
Social Enterprise Prize Team
Litech Labs
are the AI operating system for affordable housing developers.
Team Members: Justin Pryor and Bhavith Manapoty
McGinnis Venture Competition Graduate Team
MedQ AI
is harnessing AI to make professional learning efficient, evidence-driven and always in step with advancing knowledge.
Team Member: Christopher Lee Taicher, MD
McGinnis Venture Competition Graduate Team
MyoVerse
is a wireless, body-adaptive EMG patch that captures high-density muscle data in real time — powering actionable insights that drive measurably better clinical outcomes.
Team Members: Jonathan Shulgach, Srija Chintalapalle, Shriya Jejurkar, and Yelim Kim
McGinnis Venture Competition Graduate Team
OS Keyboard
is a split ergonomic keyboard integrated with analog input devices, optimized for FPS gaming.
Team Members: Sida Cheng and Alan Yan
McGinnis Venture Competition Undergraduate Team
Pierogi Therapeutics, Inc
is an AI drug discovery company bringing AI-accelerated virtual screening to the radiopharmaceutical space.
Team Members: Ben Koby and Filipp Gusev
McGinnis Venture Competition Graduate Team
Proofline
is a QR-enabled, AI-powered platform that streamlines multifamily unit turns by turning on-site activity into verified, real-time operational data.
Team Member: Cara Molloy
McGinnis Venture Competition Graduate Team
Pulse
Pulse is a political technology company building campaign simulators for small to mid-size political campaigns to rehearse their races.
Team Members: Avalon Sueiro and Aaryan Lalwani
Social Enterprise Prize Team
RapidEye
is an AI-powered property inspection platform that automates quality assurance for vacation rental managers, reducing inspection time by 75% and eliminating costly guest complaints.
Team Members: Rohan Nagabhirava and Samuel Parks
McGinnis Venture Competition Graduate Team
Relayd
is an AI workflow assistant for nurses which helps them focus on what's most important - patient care.
Team Members: Shubhaa Chawla and Miguel Almeida
McGinnis Venture Competition Graduate Team
SpoilSafe
is an industrial IoT and AI quality assurance platform for warehouses and distribution centers that uses real-time sensor data and predictive models to detect, assess, and prevent spoilage risk before losses occur.
Team Members: Vivaan Sawant, Aneesh Pataballa, Advika Vuppala, Rohan Ganesh, and Troy McBride
McGinnis Venture Competition Undergraduate Team
TraumaGuard
TraumaGuard is a handheld saliva-based biomarker reader that measures S100B (a protein released from damaged tissue) and delivers an objective recovery number to a smartphone in 15 minutes.
Team Members:Karl Bates, Patrick Jacobs, Evelyn Bates, and Zane Bates
McGinnis Venture Competition Graduate Team
Thank you to our Swartz Center Patrons
