Every Spring, the Startup Columbia venture competition gives out non-dilutive cash prizes to the next generation of entrepreneurs early-stage ventures founded, managed, and owned by current Columbia students, or by recent Columbia alumni. Alumni judges evaluate competitors in each of the various competitions
This year, prizes totaled more than $200K.
Congratulations to all the winners!
Open Track
First Place: $15,000
Yucca Earth
Robotic precision agriculture for water conservation
Connor Lee ’26SEAS Undergrad; Vignesh Karthik ’26SEAS Undergrad
Second Place: $10,000
Puberry
A gamified app for youth health education.
Demetra Mallios ’22SEAS Grad/CBS
Third Place: $5,000
MabLab
Detecting deadly lacing agents in recreational drugs.
Vienna Sparks ’26 Barnard
Millard Chan ’99 Technology Track, Columbia Engineering
First Place: $25,000
InstaLabel
Novel customizable data-annotator to train any AI-model
Ayman Talkani ’23SEAS Grad; Aadil Mehdi Sanchawala ’23SEAS Grad
Second Place: $15,000
Dumpling AI
Automated, product-contextualized documentation for engineers
Jessica Shi ’24SEAS Undergrad; Sarah Gu ’24SEAS Undergrad, Manasi Soman ’24SEAS Undergrad; Theodore Chow, ’24CC
Third Place: $10,000
Brekland
Climate resilience solution for farmers combating frost
Philip Brudnicki ’22SEAS PhD; Eric Bellefroid ’18 PhD, Yale University
Engineering for Humanity Prize: $10,000
CIPER
Automating IV push to reduce administration errors
Sean Kim ’24SEAS Grad; Annabel Cho ’24SEAS Grad; Leonhard Heinrich ’24SEAS Grad
Undergraduate Track
First Place: $15,000
Mamba Health
A SaaS for efficient, smart hospital billing
Rohan Kulkarni ’25SEAS Undergrad; Luke Xue ’25CC
Second Place: $10,000
Per Pouch
Supplements reimagined: pure, tasteless, and foundational nutrition
Stanly Shukhman ’26CC; Yash Sahoo ’25 Northeastern University
Third Place: $5,000
The Bulletin
Virtual bulletin board for Columbia students
Lucy Chen ’25CC; Rotem Weiss ’24GS
Global Policy Challenge, SIPA
First Place: $25,000
TANDA
Connects children of undocumented Americans to appropriate financial institutions and investment vehicles to help mixed-status families save for elder immigrants’ retirement and plan for their financial future
Franco Cristiani, Laura Cecilia Belk, Sara Gomez Horta, Isela Gutierrez, Felix Wang
Second Place: $12,500
Naila Climate Youth Network
Online platform linking young people across Saudi Arabia to local climate scientists, urban and rural planners, government officials in the energy sector, as well as rural farmers and indigenous communities
Ana Costa Cunha, Lilian Nassif, Abdullah Alshangiti, Jude Tareef Alaama, Daniela Bushiri, Andy Jiang
Third Place: $12,500
Legislative Llama
Activates Gen Z and younger Millennials in advocacy, civic engagement, and political participation through a habit-building digital platform that leverages advances in AI and Large Language Models
Kristen Tadrous, Stacey Eliuk, Daniel Sheehan, Marielle Villar Martiney
Media Track, Columbia Journalism
First Place: $15,000
FaultLines
An Interactive AI-Powered Earthquake Risk Assessment Platform
Taha Erdem Ozturk, Jacob Taylor Sirota
Second Place: $10,000
In Old News LLC
Diversifying video journalism through free footage library
Shalaka Shinde, Manon Verchot, Sanshey Biswas
Tie, Third Place: $5,000
Pitch, Please!
Streamlining the journalist-to-newsroom pitch process
Meghnad Bose, Trisha Mukherjee, Dina Katgara
Tie, Third Place: $5,000
PrivaSee
Auto-score and visualize privacy policies by AI
Yuqi Cheng, Yanan Sun