Congrats to the Summer 2020 cohort of the MESA Idea Accelerator!
Student teams spent a semester developing a solution to a societal problem (everything from recycling to mental health) using a human-centered design process.
Teams gained insight and feedback from industry professionals to create some pretty awesome tools. They had to submit design briefs and present a slide deck as a pitch to potential investors. (The winning teams won scholarships too!)
Here are the winners and team pitches:
1st place: Speechsight is an interpersonal communications tool for those who are deaf and hard of hearing
2nd place: CareMax is a virtual mental heath care tool that uses AI to combat anxiety among college students
3rd place: LinguaPal is a peer-sourced tool to learn new languages
You can check out all the other team projects here:
Study Buddies an open-sourced machine-learning tool that offers AI tutoring
Goalaco helps users tackle procrastination and improve mental health
Affording to Dream App helps DREAMers navigate financial systems to afford higher education
Contra Costa Financial Literacy Program support to prepare BIPOC and immigrant students for financial stability
Biotion creates a trash-collecting social community to reduce waste through incentivisation
Ocean Pollution a jet-propelled robot, The Purple Shark, that clears ocean trash through infrared cameras and sensors