Innovative Purdue students receive cash prizes for ideating daring solutions to global challenges

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Teams of Purdue University students won a combined $5,500 in prizes during the finals of the Moonshot Pitch Challenge, a semiannual, ideation-focused competition organized by the Purdue Innovates Incubator.

“The Moonshot Pitch Challenge recognizes audacious solutions and the people ideating them,” said Doug Applegate, Incubator associate director. “Purdue University students are actively analyzing worldwide challenges and diligently working on the giant leaps to address them.”

Active Purdue undergraduate and graduate students across all colleges were eligible to compete. Close to 60 teams submitted a video to explain the problem they were addressing and propose their solution. Solutions were grouped in one of three categories:

• Moonshot: Ideas primarily focused on solving a seemingly impossible problem.
• Orbit: Ideas primarily focused on business-to-business solutions.
• Earth: Ideas primarily focused on addressing socioeconomic needs and challenges.

On Oct. 3, 14 finalists had two minutes to pitch their solutions to judges at the Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship. Submissions for the spring 2025 Moonshot Pitch Challenge will begin in February.

Winning teams

First-place teams in each category received $1,500 apiece. Teams that won the Best Pitch and Crowd Favorite awards received $500 each. The winners were:

Moonshot category and Best Pitch Award: MiceWay, a mouse restraint device that reduces manual handling of animals in research. By minimizing an animal’s physical stress, MiceWay improves animal welfare and data reliability. Team members are Shikha Adhikari and Kelly Siddeeq,College of Agriculture. Adhikari also participates in the Certificate in Entrepreneurship and Innovation program.

“MiceWay is currently under development in partnership with mentors from the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering and our principal investigator, Dr. Amanda Darbyshire, in the College of Veterinary Medicine,” Adhikari said. “We are now approved for using the product in animal research studies in order to test its effectiveness. The next steps after obtaining data will be to refine the product further and determine if results are improved from the last iteration.”

Adhikari said winning the Moonshot category opened doors to new connections for the MiceWay team, including developing and improving the product.

“By participating in the Moonshot Pitch Challenge, Kelly and I made new connections, raised interest in our product, and received new ideas to refine the design and market it,” she said. “In addition, it gave us confidence that what we brought to the table can be implemented, and the dream of bringing MiceWay to market isn’t too far away.”

Orbit category: Digital Silva, a veteran-led, NDAA-compliant drone technology startup that revolutionizes forestry and land management through forest inventory, 3D mapping and species detection. This company is led by Joe House, College of Agriculture.

“Digital Silva LLC is currently in the pre-seed stage of fundraising, pitching to venture capitalists and angel investors; we hope to close out the stage by the end of the year,” House said. “There are three drone platforms with SLAM-lidar integrations currently on the market, and we look forward to testing them in the spring for our use case of autonomous flight below the forest canopy in the central hardwoods.

“The Moonshot Pitch Challenge, just like every other program offered by Purdue Innovates, is hands down the best and most straightforward business mentorship program I’ve been involved with. The Moonshot Pitch Challenge just reinforced my idea and the use case within the forestry industry.”

Earth category: Crossroads, an app that offers a personalized, AI-guided Bible journey designed to help Christians overcome spiritual dryness and get closer to God’s word. Team members are Dominic DeLuca and Kestan Kamei, College of Science. Kamei also participates in the Certificate in Entrepreneurship and Innovation program.

“Crossroads is currently in the early stages of development, working on validating its core concept and building the initial version of its product. The next steps include refining the business model, expanding the team and gathering feedback from potential users to ensure product-market fit,” Kamei said. “Along with winning the prize, participating in the Moonshot Pitch Challenge has provided invaluable advice from judges and mentors, and increased exposure to the entrepreneurial community, opening doors for future opportunities.”

Crowd Favorite Award: Pooler, an online banking service designed for pooled money, allowing all group members to see the total. Applications include tournaments, philanthropy events and group purchases. This project is led by Max Ciafardini, Mitch Daniels School of Business and Certificate in Entrepreneurship and Innovation.

“Pooler is a raw idea, but Moonshot and the Incubator program can connect me with the right people to get started. I plan to stay in touch with the program and see what they believe to be the best steps to take,” Ciafardini said. “The Moonshot Pitch Challenge allowed me to meet like-minded students who want to build something. It exposed me to an environment where people are ambitious and use their creativity for the better.” 

Honor roll of finalists

Other teams in the finals were:

• Armasu: Rick Lee, Daniels School and Certificate in Entrepreneurship and Innovation, and Kenneth Kang, Santa Clara University
• Centrova: Lionel Loo, College of Science
• DU-Eye: Vinay Ayala, College of Engineering, and Rishit Basundhara and Naomi Wei, Daniels School
• Emblem Bionics: Jackson Bahr, Trent Bien and Caden Serrato, College of Engineering, and Zachary Walter, Daniels School
• Helixbyte: Parvesh Venugopallavanya, College of Agriculture
• Nerv: Ishan Junnarkar, Daniels School and Certificate in Entrepreneurship and Innovation
• PetVox: Grant Yoder, College of Science
• Project Alive: Jason Alexander Fotso-Puepi and Dipam Patel, College of Science and Office of the Vice Provost for Graduate Students and Postdoctoral Scholars
• Pyras: Ayush Karkare, College of Engineering and Certificate in Entrepreneurship and Innovation, and Joey Kokinda, College of Liberal Arts
• Soloserve: Mackenzie Isaacs, College of Liberal Arts, and Caroline Risewick, Purdue Polytechnic Institute

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 with entrepreneurs-in-residence. 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 Purdue Incubator team.

About Purdue University

Purdue University is a public research institution demonstrating excellence at scale. Ranked among top 10 public universities and with two colleges in the top four in the United States, Purdue discovers and disseminates knowledge with a quality and at a scale second to none. More than 105,000 students study at Purdue across modalities and locations, including nearly 50,000 in person on the West Lafayette campus. Committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue’s main campus has frozen tuition 13 years in a row. See how Purdue never stops in the persistent pursuit of the next giant leap — including its first comprehensive urban campus in Indianapolis, the Mitch Daniels School of Business, Purdue Computes and the One Health initiative — at https://www.purdue.edu/president/strategic-initiatives.