Student Competition WInners (academic, innovation, and research)

Georgia Tech Team Takes Second Place at ICRA Robot Teleoperation Contest

dgivens8 — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 12:58:25 +0000

Georgia Tech Team Takes Second Place at ICRA Robot Teleoperation Contest dgivens8 Tue, 07/29/2025 - 08:58

An algorithmic breakthrough from School of Interactive Computing researchers that earned a Meta partnershipdrew more attention at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA).

Meta announced in February its partnership with the labs of professors Danfei Xu and Judy Hoffman on a novel computer vision-based algorithm called EgoMimic. It enables robots to learn new skills by imitating human tasks from first-person video footage captured by Meta’s Aria smart glasses.

Xu’s Robot Learning and Reasoning Lab (RL2) displayed EgoMimic in action at ICRA May 19-23 at the World Congress Center in Atlanta.

Lawrence Zhu, Pranav Kuppili, and Patcharapong “Elmo” Aphiwetsa — students from Xu’s lab — used Egomimic to compete in a robot teleoperation contest at ICRA. The team finished second in the event titled What Bimanual Teleoperation and Learning from Demonstration Can Do Today, earning a $10,000 cash prize.

Teams were challenged to perform tasks by remotely controlling a robot gripper. The robot had to fold a tablecloth, open a vacuum-sealed container, place an object into the container, and then reseal it in succession without any errors.

Teams completed the tasks as many times as possible in 30 minutes, earning points for each successful attempt.

The competition also offered different challenge levels that increased the points awarded. Teams could directly operate the robot with a full workstation view and receive one point for each task completion. Or, as the RL2 team chose, teams could opt for the second challenge level.

The second level required an operator to control the task with no view of the workstation except for what was provided to through a video feed. The RL2 team completed the task seven times and received double points for the challenge level.

The third challenge level required teams to operate remotely from another location. At this level, teams could earn four times the number of points for each successful task completed. The fourth level challenged teams to deploy an algorithm for task performance and awarded eight points for each completion.

Using two of Meta’s Quest wireless controllers, Zhu controlled the robot under the direction of Aphiwetsa, while Kuppili monitored the coding from his laptop.

“It’s physically difficult to teleoperate for half an hour,” Zhu said. “My hands were shaking from holding the controllers in the air for that long.”

Being in constant communication with Aphiwetsa helped him stay focused throughout the contest.

“I helped him strategize the teleoperation and noticed he could skip some of the steps in the folding,” Aphiwetsa said. “There were many ways to do it, so I just told him what he could fix and how to do it faster.”

Zhu said he and his team had intended to tackle the fourth challenge level with the EgoMimic algorithm. However, due to unexpected time constraints, they decided to switch to the second level the day before the competition due to unexpected time constraints.

“I think we realized the day before the competition training the robot on our model would take a huge amount of time,” Zhu said. “We decided to go for the teleoperation and started practicing.”

He said the team wants to tackle the highest challenge level and use a training model for next year’s ICRA competition in Vienna, Austria.

ICRA is the world’s largest robotics conference, and Atlanta hosted the event for the third time in its history, drawing a record-breaking attendance of over 7,000.

Subtitle

Summary sentence

A Georgia Tech team earned second place in the ICRA Robot Teleoperation Contest for their EgoMimic algorithm, which allows robots to learn skills by mimicking human tasks from first-person video.

Summary

Students from Georgia Tech's Robot Learning and Reasoning Lab earned second place and a $10,000 cash prize in a robot teleoperation contest at the 2025 International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Atlanta. The RL2 lab announced a partnership with Meta in February on a novel computer vision-based algorithm called EgoMimic. It enables robots to learn new skills by imitating human tasks from first-person video footage captured by Meta’s Aria smart glasses.

Dateline

Wed, 06/11/2025 - 12:00

Associated importer

Keywords

cc-research; ic-ai-ml; ic-robotics

artificial intelligence (AI)

go-ai

go-researchnews

Research Horizons

student competition

Categories

Computer Science/Information Technology and Security

Robotics

Student Competition WInners (academic, innovation, and research)

Mercury ID

682761

Source updated

Thu, 06/12/2025 - 07:52

Klaus Startup Challenge Showcases Georgia Tech's Rising Entrepreneurial Talent

dgivens8 — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 12:57:41 +0000

Klaus Startup Challenge Showcases Georgia Tech's Rising Entrepreneurial Talent dgivens8 Tue, 07/29/2025 - 08:57

Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies played a crucial role for student entrepreneurs competing for $750,000 in startup funding during the fifth annual Klaus Startup Challenge at the College of Computing.

More than 200 students competed during the entry-level pitch competition. Georgia Tech alumnus and renowned tech entrepreneur Christopher W. Klaus, the competition's namesake, pledged $150,000 toward startup costs for five winning teams. The challenge aims to prepare beginner entrepreneurs for future competitions and funding opportunities.

The three-round competition started in February with 87 teams. In round one, teams had to meet the application deadline and ensure that at least one team member participated in all challenge workshops, mentor meetings, and pitch practices. Round two required eligible teams to submit a 90-second pitch video.

Twenty-four teams selected by a judges' panel then moved on to round three of the startup challenge, which took place on April 2 in the Klaus Advanced Computing Building.

For the final round, the teams pitched their startup concepts to a live audience and a panel of judges. The judges were Klaus, Joe Uhl, an alumnus and member of the College of Computing Advisory Board, and Margaret Weniger, director of Entrepreneurial Programs at CREATE-X.

The winning startups span financial services, cybersecurity, social media, and other business sectors.

Targeting the food and beverage industry, winning startup DDingDong has developed an innovative platform that leverages advanced technology and streamlined communication to connect restaurants and diners through personalized promotions.

Seung Taek Lee (CS 25), CS BS/MS student Sunny Park, and business major Seongyeon Cho co-founded DDingDong. The team is using its funding investment from Fusen to establish the startup as a Delaware C Corporation.

“What started as a spark of an idea just three months ago has now grown into a real product, a real team, and a real company. With all those late nights, no weekends, and endless coding — all running on the sheer energy of ‘we believe in this,’” Park said in a LinkedIn post.

Park also thanked the judges in her post. She singled out Klaus. She said, “This challenge carries your name, your legacy, and your continued commitment to pushing innovation forward.

“It was an honor to pitch in front of you, and we’re incredibly grateful that you saw something in us. Your belief in our idea gave us the confidence to keep building.”

The competition rules require each team to have at least one member who is a current Georgia Tech student. In addition to DDingDong, the winning teams of the 2025 Klaus Startup Challenge and their Yellow Jacket team members are:

AerLock: Jack Rumpf, Jack Wachter (CS 24), Yoyi Xie – AerLock brings AI to cybersecurity, creating a single solution to defend entire organizations in real time. It looks to outpace the development of malware, which will help end effective cyberattacks.

Chemetrian: David Ashley (CS MS 25) – Chemetrian empowers molecular scientists to harness AI and machine learning through an intuitive, easy-to-use platform that standardizes computational workflows. This functionality accelerates the discovery of societally transformative molecules, eliminating the need for programming expertise.

Loandock: Ethan Gutierrez and Arnav Jha – Loandock streamlines the mortgage process for homebuyers by consolidating loan officers, underwriters, and processors into one AI-powered platform.

Shelfmates: Khushi Gupta, Krishnav Singhal – Shelfmates creates tailored social media experiences for readers. It provides users with daily book discoveries, personalized recommendations, and tools to journal, rate, and effortlessly share their reading journeys.

The winning teams each received $150,000 to fund their startups. Fusen, a national campus startup accelerator founded by Klaus, provided the investment funding for the competition.

Despite this generosity, funding the College’s student startup challenge isn’t Klaus’s only investment in Georgia Tech student entrepreneurship this year.

Klaus, a member of the College’s Advisory Board, made headlines this month when he announced that he would personally cover the incorporation costs for any graduating student aspiring to launch a startup.

"This is about more than just covering fees — it’s about lighting a spark,” said Klaus during Commencement remarks on May 2.

“Every founder needs someone to believe in them early. Through this gift, we’re offering that belief and giving graduates the chance to start building with purpose and confidence.”

Subtitle

Summary sentence

Named for alumnus and tech entrepreneur Christopher W. Klaus, the College of Computing's annual student startup competition featured $750K in funding.

Summary

Named for alumnus and tech entrepreneur Christopher W. Klaus, the College of Computing's annual student startup competition featured $750K in funding. The Klaus Startup Challenge aims to prepare beginner entrepreneurs for future competitions and funding opportunities.

Dateline

Tue, 05/20/2025 - 12:00

Contact

Ben Snedeker, Communications Manager II

Georgia Tech College of Computing

Associated importer

Keywords

Daily Digest

Georgia Tech News Center

aspiring entrepreneurs

CREATE-X, startup, entrepreneurship, founders

News room topics

Campus and Community

Categories

Student Competition WInners (academic, innovation, and research)

Mercury ID

682486

Source updated

Wed, 05/21/2025 - 21:17

OMSCS Team Takes Entrepreneurial Tack to Win $10,000 in Microsoft Azure Challenge

dgivens8 — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 12:57:41 +0000

OMSCS Team Takes Entrepreneurial Tack to Win $10,000 in Microsoft Azure Challenge dgivens8 Tue, 07/29/2025 - 08:57

A team of Georgia Tech graduate students is using artificial intelligence (AI) to help people with disabilities find their dream jobs.

Searching for the right job is stressful for most, but it can be overwhelming for people with disabilities. However, using an innovative approach, the student entrepreneurs created a customizable AI-powered "job coach" that connects people with accessible employment opportunities.

OMSCS students George Gomez, Ariel Magyar, Zachary Patrignani, and Maheer Sayeed created Interstellar Jobs as their entry for the March 2025 Microsoft Azure Innovation Challenge. The team beat over 70 international entries to secure first place and $10,000.

Interstellar Jobs uses information about job seekers' disabilities, job preferences, and other personal details to provide detailed coaching tips for specific jobs. The tips let job seekers know if they're a good fit for the position, what challenges they can expect, and what they can do to manage these challenges successfully.

The challenge, co-sponsored by TechBridge, required teams to create a functional proof of concept within a tight timeframe using AI, analytics, networking, and other Microsoft Azure Web Services.

Selecting which services to use was the starting point for most teams. In fact, Sayeed says most of the competition tried to use as many Azure services as possible for their projects.

"We didn't do that. We kept it simple," said Sayeed.

"Our mindset going into the challenge was that we'd find the problem first, and then we would look at the services we would use."

Their entrepreneurial approach led the team to develop Interstellar Jobs using just three Azure services. As an example of their approach, the team faced the challenge of addressing specific disabilities in relation to thousands of job listings.

Developers usually depend on drop-down menus when presenting an extensive list of options. However, this method might not cover all disabilities or could use outdated or overly broad language. It also wouldn't account for people with multiple or nuanced disabilities that don't fit neatly into a single category.

The Interstellar Jobs team opted for a blank field for users to list their disabilities.

"We kept it very open-ended for our users," said Sayeed.

The team used OpenAI Service to 'clean' entries on the backend, regardless of what users wrote in the blank field. This method ensures that users can always get a structured and actionable response from Interstellar Jobs.

"As a user, not having to pick from a drop-down menu just feels good," said Matt Calder, senior product marketing manager at Microsoft.

Calder hosts Microsoft DevRadio and recently interviewed the Interstellar Jobs team. "I like how your approach changes how people interact with the whole system. If you make something really usable, it's going to be accessible as well," said Calder.

Despite its success, the team has no immediate plans to expand Interstellar Jobs. Each member balances a full-time job and their studies in Georgia Tech's Online Master of Science in Computer Science (OMSCS) program.

"We gained so much about cloud development and Azure Web Services from the experience," said Sayeed. "We also learned the value of AI in these applications."

Subtitle

Summary sentence

A student team has "learned the value of AI" by creating a job coaching app for people with disabilities.

Summary

A team of OMSCS students took an entrepreneurial approach to develop an AI-powered app that coaches people with disabilities during their job search. The app, Interstellar Jobs, earned the team first place and $10,000 in a recent Microsoft Azure Web Services challenge.

Dateline

Fri, 06/27/2025 - 12:00

Contact

Ben Snedeker, Communications Manager II

Georgia Tech College of Computing

Associated importer

Keywords

Daily Digest

Georgia Tech News Center

artificial intelligence

artificial intelligence (AI)

Categories

Artificial Intelligence

Student Competition WInners (academic, innovation, and research)

Mercury ID

682917

Source updated

Fri, 06/27/2025 - 09:21

Brain-Inspired AI Breakthrough Spotlighted at Global Conference

dgivens8 — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 16:46:41 +0000

Brain-Inspired AI Breakthrough Spotlighted at Global Conference dgivens8 Thu, 06/26/2025 - 12:46

Researchers at Georgia Tech have taken a critical step forward in creating efficient, useful and brain-like artificial intelligence (AI). The key? A new algorithm that results in neural networks with internal structure more like the human brain.

The study, “TopoNets: High-Performing Vision and Language Models With Brain-Like Topography,” was awarded a spotlight at this year’s International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR), a distinction given to only 2 percent of papers. The research was led by graduate student Mayukh Deb alongside School of Psychology Assistant Professor Apurva Ratan Murty.

Thirty-two of Tech’s computing, engineering, and science faculty represented the Institute at ICLR 2025, which is globally renowned for sharing cutting-edge research.

“We started with this idea because we saw that AI models are unstructured, while brains are exquisitely organized,” says first-author Deb. “Our models with internal structure showed more than a 20 percent boost in efficiency with almost no performance losses. And this is out-of-the-box — it’s broadly applicable to other models with no extra fine-tuning needed.”

For Murty, the research also underscores the importance of a rapidly growing field of research at the intersection of neuroscience and AI. “There's a major explosion in understanding intelligence right now,” he says. “The neuro-AI approach is exciting because it helps emulate human intelligence in machines, making AI more interpretable.”

“In addition to advancing AI, this type of research also benefits neuroscience because it informs a fundamental question: Why is our brain organized the way it is?,” Deb adds. “Making AI more interpretable helps everyone.”

Brain-inspired blueprints

In the brain, neurons form topographic maps: neurons used for comparable tasks are closer together. The researchers applied this concept to AI by organizing how internal components (like artificial neurons) connect and process information.

This type of organization has been tried in the past but has been challenging, Murty says. “Historically, rules constraining how the AI could structure itself often resulted in lower-performing models. We realized that for this type of biophysical constraint, you simply can’t map everything — you need an algorithmic solution.”

“Our key insight was an algorithmic trick that gives the same structure as brains without enforcing things that models don't respond well to,” he adds. “That breakthrough was what Mayukh (Deb) worked on.”

The algorithm, called TopoLoss, uses a loss function to encourage brain-like organization in artificial neural networks, and it is compatible with many AI systems capable of understanding language and images.

“The resulting training method, TopoNets, is very flexible and broadly applicable,” Murty says. “You can apply it to contemporary models very easily, which is a critical advancement when compared to previous methods.”

Neuro-AI innovations

Murty and Deb plan to continue refining and designing brain-inspired AI systems. “All parts of the brain have some organization — we want to expand into other domains,” Deb says. “On the neuroscience side of things, we want to discover new kinds of organization in brains using these topographic systems.”

Deb also cites possibilities in robotics, especially in situations like space exploration where resources are limited. “Imagine running a model inside a robot with limited power,” he says. “Structured models can help us achieve 80 percent of performance with just 20 percent of energy consumption, saving valuable energy and space. This is still experimental, but it's the direction we are interested in exploring.”

“This success highlights the potential of a new approach, designing systems that benefit both neuroscience and AI — and beyond,” Murty adds. “We can learn so much from the human brain, and this project shows that brain-inspired systems can help current AI be better. We hope our work stimulates this conversation.”

Subtitle

Summary sentence

Researchers at Georgia Tech have developed an algorithm that helps AI models develop internal organization just like the human brain — boosting efficiency by 20 percent.

Summary

Researchers at Georgia Tech have developed an algorithm that helps AI models develop internal organization just like the human brain — boosting efficiency by 20 percent.

Dateline

Thu, 06/26/2025 - 12:00

Contact

Written by Selena Langner

Contact: Jess Hunt-Ralston

Associated importer

Keywords

go-neuro

cos-neuro

go-ai

go-researchnews

Categories

Artificial Intelligence

Computer Science/Information Technology and Security

Research

Student and Faculty

Student Competition WInners (academic, innovation, and research)

Student Research

Mercury ID

682905

Source updated

Thu, 06/26/2025 - 12:46

Best of ISyE and Capstone Design Expo 2025

dgivens8 — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 13:26:41 +0000

Best of ISyE and Capstone Design Expo 2025 dgivens8 Thu, 06/05/2025 - 09:26

This semester 29 ISyE senior design teams were showcased in the Capstone Design Expo, nearly double the amount of the Fall 2024 cohort!

Our industrial engineering (IE) teams worked with a broad range of industries, including transportation, analytics, non-profits, and more. Many of our teams had the chance to collaborate extensively with their clients, ultimately allowing them to apply their technical knowledge to their company's obstacles and providing them a well-rounded solution.

Even in our state, we will be able to see our students' impact -- meet senior design team “Grand Slammers”!

They won the Best of ISyE distinction award at Capstone Design Expo, for their collaborative work with the Atlanta Braves, Atlanta’s Major League Baseball (MLB) team. The group created a data-driven methodology to strategically place promotions and giveaways to maximize ticket sales for their annual revenue.

The project focuses on developing a regression model to forecast tickets sold that would then be fed into an optimization model to design a promotional calendar that maximizes the impact of promotions. The team created an adjustment dashboard to visualize the impact strategic promotion placement has on predicted attendance as well as analyze customer satisfaction survey data that is currently not being utilized by the Braves.

Members: Anna Taylor, Diego Mora, Hailey Toeppner, Tyler Hankin, Apoorva Mahendranath, Ethan Asbell, Bre Kaplan, Ollie Davidson

ISyE Finalist Presentations

To further celebrate, multiple teams from this cohort were selected as finalists for the Spring 2025 semester. From the 29 teams that completed their senior design projects, three teams were selected as finalists for the Best of ISyE, along with that, one team was awarded the Design with Implementation and Impact award sponsored by KS2 Technologies, and the Create-X team was featured as the top project of its kind.

Category 1. Senior Design Finalists are:

Client: Arauco

Advisor: Dr. Oktay Gunluk

Client: BMW

Advisor: Dr. Arthur Delarue

Client: Novelis

Project Title: Scrap Happens

Advisor: Dr. Craig Tovey

Client: The Coca Cola Company

Advisor: Dr. Gunter Sharp

Category 2. Senior Design Honorable Mentions are:

Client: Delta Airlines Technical Operation Center

Project Title: Next Part, Best Part

Client Sponsor: Jeremiah Roberts

Advisor: Dr. Anton Kleywegt

Client: UPS

Project Title: Take a Load Off, UPS

Client Sponsor: Jeroen Savelsbergh

Advisor: Dr. Weijun Xie

Category 3. Design with Implementation and Impact, sponsored by KS2 Technologies

Client: Hextronics
Project Title: Hextronics Senior Design Project

Client Sponsor: Curt Lary
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Anton Kleywegt

Client: Neighborhood Meals on Wheels
Project Title: The Missing Ingredient

Client Sponsor: Jenny Allen
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Oktay Gunluk

Category 4. Featured ISyE Create-X project

Project Title: Enloq - AI Video Investigation Agents for Supply Chain Safety & Security

Team Members: Omar El Barbir (CMPE) | Panagiotis Kakoulidis (ME) | Sarra Khouaja (IE) | Nikolaos Komianos (CMPE) | Can Ozgel (IE) and Pranu Prakash (IE)

Faculty Advisor: Dr. John Vande Vate

____

To learn more, read the full capstone story here.

Subtitle

Summary sentence

This semester 29 ISyE senior design teams were showcased in the Capstone Design Expo, competing against over 200 teams. 

Summary

This semester 29 ISyE senior design teams were showcased in the Capstone Design Expo, competing against over 200 teams. 

Dateline

Thu, 05/01/2025 - 12:00

Contact

Camille Carpenter, Communications Manager

Daniela Estrada, Program Manager

Categories

Student Competition WInners (academic, innovation, and research)

Mercury ID

682183

Source updated

Thu, 06/05/2025 - 09:25

Computing Student Secures Y Combinator Funding for LLM Developer Tool

dgivens8 — Thu, 15 May 2025 13:57:39 +0000

Computing Student Secures Y Combinator Funding for LLM Developer Tool dgivens8 Thu, 05/15/2025 - 09:57

Ayush Karupakula, a second-year computer science student (CS), has secured $500,000 in pre-seed funding from Y Combinator (YC) for Tropir, a startup that helps developers trace and debug failures in large language model (LLM) pipelines.

YC is a prestigious startup accelerator known for launching companies like Airbnb, DoorDash, Stripe, and Reddit, and Karupakula’s acceptance into its Winter 2025 batch places him among the next generation of tech founders.

The Road to Y Combinator

Winning a spot in YC is no small feat. The selection process is highly competitive, with an acceptance rate of around 1%. Participation requires a compelling vision, a strong team, and proof of concept that demonstrates potential. For this student and his co-founder Aarush Kukreja (Princeton University), the journey began in late 2024 with an ambitious idea and a scrappy demo.

“The interview was a 10-minute rapid-fire session with YC partners. They grilled us on our prototype, market fit, and drive,” Karupakula said. “We didn’t have everything figured out, but they loved our energy and our willingness to pivot fast.”

Pivoting from Sustainable Design to Developer Tools

Today, the team is building a developer tool that helps teams trace, debug, and improve complex LLM pipelines. It captures how inputs flow across chains of prompts, retrievals, and tool calls—without any code changes—and surfaces the root causes when outputs break. It also suggests better prompts, structural changes, and other ways to optimize pipeline performance.

Tropir initially aimed to help architecture and planning firms design energy-efficient buildings using AI-driven optimization. But after early user feedback revealed budget constraints and limited software adoption in that market, the team shifted focus.

The team’s ability to adapt quickly to demand is a skill Karupakula credits to his experience at Georgia Tech, where rigorous problem-solving and exposure to cutting-edge technology taught him to iterate fast and stay grounded in user needs.

Leveraging Georgia Tech’s Startup Ecosystem

For Karupakula, Georgia Tech also played a pivotal role in shaping his entrepreneurial mindset. The rigorous CS curriculum provided the technical skills to build innovative solutions, but it was the startup ecosystem that truly sparked his ambition.

“CREATE-X was a game-changer. Taking the Startup Lab class gave me hands-on experience, and attending project showcases opened my eyes to other undergrads’ wild ideas. It’s pure inspiration,” Karupakula said. “And the Grand Challenges Living Learning Community drilled into us the value of stakeholder interviews and rapid prototyping, habits I live by now.”

Hackathons like Hacklytics also helped fuel his passion, exposing him to fast-paced, high-impact projects that reinforced his problem-solving skills and entrepreneurial drive.

The YC Experience: Hustle, Innovation, and Growth

Since joining YC, the experience has been transformative. Relocating to San Francisco, the startup’s founders are now immersed in a high-energy environment where late-night coding sessions and continuous mentorship are the norm. With Garry Tan, YC’s President and CEO, as their designated general partner, they’ve gained insights to refine their approach.

“Being surrounded by founders pushing the boundaries of tech is electric,” Karupakula said. “The energy here is unreal; constant feedback, late-night sprints, and meeting users who get hyped about what we’re building.”

What’s Next?

With YC backing and a new direction, the team is moving fast. Their primary focus is testing their latest concept with users and preparing for a product launch by late spring 2025. The $500,000 in pre-seed funding is being used to expand outbound sales, support cloud infrastructure, and eventually hire engineers to accelerate development.

“YC’s network is the ideal launchpad,” Karupakula said. “Long-term, we’re committed to building something transformative.”

Advice for Aspiring Georgia Tech Entrepreneurs

For fellow students looking to break into the startup world, Karupakula’s advice is simple: “Go for it. Build a rough prototype and get it in front of users, even if it’s not perfect. Lean on CREATE-X for mentorship and connections - they’re gold. And don’t overthink the idea. Pivots are part of the journey. If a second-year undergrad like me can land in YC, you can too.”

Subtitle

Summary sentence

Ayush Karupakula, a second-year computer science student (CS), has secured $500,000 in pre-seed funding from Y Combinator (YC) for Tropir, a startup that helps developers trace and debug failures in large language model (LLM) pipelines.

Summary

Dateline

Thu, 05/15/2025 - 12:00

emily.smith@cc.gatech.edu

Associated importer

Keywords

College of Computing

school of computing instruction

CREATE-X, startup, entrepreneurship, founders

Categories

Student Competition WInners (academic, innovation, and research)

Mercury ID

682405

Source updated

Thu, 05/15/2025 - 09:56

School Award Winners Impress on World, National, and Institute Stages

dgivens8 — Fri, 25 Apr 2025 14:11:55 +0000

School Award Winners Impress on World, National, and Institute Stages dgivens8 Fri, 04/25/2025 - 10:11

The dictionary is the only place where success comes before work. The College of Computing’s 34th Annual Awards Celebration on April 8 offered a venue to honor the hard work and ensuing success of students, faculty, staff, and alumni in 2024-2025.

“In this past year, my first as the dean of computing, I have seen exactly how much work it takes from everyone to keep this community going, not to mention excelling,” said Vivek Sarkar, dean and John P. Imlay Jr. Chair of the College of Computing.

“We are strong across the board, and that makes our winners all the more impressive.”

The School of Computational Science and Engineering (CSE) is one unit that reinforces the College’s emphasis on collaboration, problem solving, and excellence. By earning awards this year at the College, Institute, and levels beyond, the School of CSE continues to distinguish itself as a top-tier department for research and learning.

Select award winners from the School of CSE recognized at this year’s banquet were:

Professor Polo Chau- Dean’s Award
Pratham Mehta, M.S. CS student- The Donald V. Jackson Fellowship
Parisa Babolhavaeji- The Marshall D. Williamson Fellowship
Aeree Cho, Ph.D. student- Rising Star Doctoral Student Research Award
Alumnus Zijie (Jay) Wang (Ph.D. ML-CSE 2024)- Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award

The College of Computing also recognized awardees with ties to the School of CSE. These included:

Lecturer and alumnus Max Roozbahani (Ph.D. CSE 2019)- William A. "gus" Baird Faculty Teaching Award. Instructor of the online section of CSE6242: Data and Visual Analytics.
Lecturer and alumnus Nimisha Roy (Ph.D. CSE 2021)- William D. "Bill" Leahy Jr. Outstanding Instructor Award
Teaching Assistant Susanta Routray- Outstanding Instructional Associate Teaching Award. Co-head TA of the online section of CSE6242: Data and Visual Analytics.

Chau teaches the CSE6242 course, and advises Babolhavaeji, Cho, Mehta, and Wang. Along with the College of Computing awards, Chau received the Innovator’s Award at the M.S. Analytics Ten Year Anniversary. He has served as the program’s associate director since 2014 and over 1,000 students have taken his data and visual analytics course each semester in recent years.

Along with receiving the College of Computing’s dissertation, Wang received a 2025 Outstanding Dissertation Award from the Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (ACM SIGCHI).

SIGCHI is the world’s largest association of human-computer interaction professionals and practitioners. Wang is one of five recipients of the award this year.

Earlier in the year, Forbes recognized Wang by naming him to its 30 Under 30 in Science for 2025.

Wang’s dissertation earned him the 2025 Best Ph.D. Thesis Award from the Georgia Tech Sigma Chi chapter.

At the same ceremony, Sigma Chi presented Regents’ Professor Mark Borodovsky with the Best Faculty Paper Award for his work on GeneMark-ETP. Borodovsky holds joint appointments with the School of CSE and the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering.

Trailblazing work in biocomputing earned Regents’ Professor Srinivas Aluru the 2025 Charles Babbage Award. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Computer Society (IEEE CS) presented the award for Aluru’s pioneering contributions intersecting parallel computing and computational biology.

News of Aluru’s Babbage Award arrived at the same time the College of Computing announced the appointments of associate deans. The College appointed Aluru as senior associate dean, and Associate Professor Elizabeth Cherry became associate dean for graduate education.

Aluru and Cherry’s appointments marked the first time in the School’s history that faculty represented the School as associate deans.

Aluru ended his role as executive director of Georgia Tech’s Institute for Data Engineering and Science (IDEaS) when he accepted the senior associate dean role. In his place, IDEaS appointed Regents’ Professor C. David Sherrill as interim executive director.

Sherrill holds joint appointments with CSE and the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry. He has served as associate director of IDEaS since its founding in 2016. His appointment as interim executive director comes after his election to the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science (IAQMS).

Cherry's appointment as associate dean was one of many accolades she received in 2025. In March, the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) selected her as a Class of 2025 Fellow, recognizing her contributions to computational cardiology research and extensive service to the SIAM community. Cherry is the fifth faculty member from the School of CSE selected as a SIAM Fellow.

Cherry co-chaired the organizing committee for the SIAM Conference on Computational Science and Engineering (CSE25). She is also serving a second consecutive term as a SIAM council member-at-large.

Members of the SIAM Activity Group on Computational Science and Engineering (SIAG/CSE) elected School of CSE Professor and Associate Chair Edmond Chow as vice chair. Chow’s two-year term began in January after serving as the group’s program director.

Cherry previously served as the School of CSE’s associate chair for academic affairs. When she accepted her new associate dean role, the School appointed B. Aditya Prakash as associate chair.

Prakash was one of three School of CSE faculty members who received promotions that take effect in July. He was promoted to full professor. Assistant Professors Chao Zhang and Xiuwei Zhang earned tenure and promotions. Each has been promoted to associate professor.

Prakash advised Alexander Rodríguez (Ph.D. CS 2023), now an assistant professor at the University of Michigan. Rodríguez won an outstanding dissertation award runner-up at the International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (KDD 2024).

Rodríguez’s dissertation on Artificial Intelligence for Data-centric Surveillance and Forecasting of Epidemics earned him the College of Computing's Outstanding Dissertation Award in 2024.

Assistant Professor Florian Schäfer co-authored a paper selected for one of five best technical paper awards at the annual conference for ACM’s Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques (SIGGRAPH 24).

Schäfer’s work in numerical computation and statistical inference led to his appointment as an initiative lead within Georgia Tech’s Institute for Matter and Systems (IMS). IMS selected Schäfer to lead the initiative on Matter and Information, looking to him to facilitate innovative approaches and impact in alignment with IMS’ mission.

Assistant Professor Spencer Bryngelson and his group received an ACCESS-CI Maximize allocation from the National Science Foundation. The award amounts to 225,000 GPU hours annually to run their multiphase fluid flow simulation algorithms on powerful supercomputers.

One of Bryngelson’s Ph.D. students, Ben Wilfong, received the 2024-2025 CRNCH Fellowship. Wilfong will use the fellowship to optimize superchip architectures, such as NVIDIA Grace Hopper and AMD MI300A.

Early in the year, Suzan Manasreh and Elizabeth Hong won President’s Undergraduate Research Awards (PURA) for Fall 2024. Manasreh studies in Bryngelson’s group, and Professor Rich Vuduc advises Hong.

M.S. CSE student Grace Driskill attained achievement in the classroom, on the track, and cross country courses. The first-ever School of CSE student-athlete earned a third selection to an All-ACC academic team.

Driskill made history by recording the fourth fastest 3000-meter time in history of the Georgia Tech Women’s Indoor Track program. She clocked a 9:22.21 on Feb. 15 at Boston University’s David Hemery Valentine Invitational.

Students praised Assistant Professor Raphaël Pestourie, who was selected for the Fall 2024 CIOS Honor Roll. The honor roll recognized Pestourie for outstanding teaching and educational impact through his CSE 8803: Scientific Machine Learning course.

In the waning weeks of the semester, CSE-AE Ph.D. student Atticus Rex received the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) award for computational and data-enabled science research. Rex is advised by Assistant Professor Elizabeth Qian, who holds joint appointments with the School of CSE and the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering.

In March, the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical and Petroleum Engineers (AIME) awarded honorary membership to Regents’ Professor Surya Kalidindi. Kalidindi is affiliated with the School of CSE, the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, and the School of Materials Science and Engineering.

Summary sentence

By earning awards this year at the College, Institute, and levels beyond, the School of Computational Science and Engineering (CSE) continues to distinguish itself as a top-tier department for research and learning.

Summary

“We are strong across the board, and that makes our winners all the more impressive.”

Dateline

Fri, 04/25/2025 - 12:00

Contact

Bryant Wine, Communications Officer
bryant.wine@cc.gatech.edu

Keywords

College of Computing

School of Computational Science and Engineering

Categories

Student and Faculty

Student Competition WInners (academic, innovation, and research)

Student Honors and Achievements

Mercury ID

682027

Source updated

Fri, 04/25/2025 - 10:11

Student Innovation Shines at Spring 2025 CS Junior Design Capstone Expo

dgivens8 — Thu, 24 Apr 2025 14:28:41 +0000

Student Innovation Shines at Spring 2025 CS Junior Design Capstone Expo dgivens8 Thu, 04/24/2025 - 10:28

From a digital tool to enhance workshops to a real-time analytics platform for warehouse sensors, computing students demonstrated a wide range of software solutions at the Spring 2025 Computer Science Junior Design Capstone Expo.

Held on April 21 in the Georgia Tech Exhibition Hall, the event highlighted the technical skills and creativity of third- and fourth-year students in the School of Computing Instruction.

The Expo is the culmination of a two-semester course in which computer science and computational media majors partner with public and private sector clients to design minimally viable products such as mobile apps, dashboards, and analytics platforms to solve real-world problems. Volunteers judge teams on functionality, aesthetics, and presentation quality.

1st Place – ETD Workshop App

This digital platform replaces physical cards with a scalable, interactive web application to support Georgia Tech’s Effective Team Dynamics workshop.

Team Members: Kevin Cao, Benjamin Diprete, Vincent Kong, Heeba Merchant, Ameerah Mourad, Scott Watanuki

2nd Place – Extropian Analytics Platform

Partnering with Extropian, the team upgraded a golf app demo into a commercial-grade platform with a refined UI/UX and insights powered by biomechanical sensor data.

Team Members: Uma Dukle, Tyler Harris, Nikil Kandala, Aryan Shah, Jeffrey Yang

3rd Place (Tie) – Spring/Gait Analysis Dashboard

This computer vision dashboard analyzes running gait using biometric and joint-tracking data, aiding athletes and physical therapists.

Team Members: Aishani Chakraborty, Anisha Sadhale, Samuel Taubman, Robert Terpin, Anish Vallabhaneni, Nolan Winter

3rd Place (Tie) – Poolerz – Carpool Optimization

This mobile and web application simplifies carpooling for families through route and schedule optimization algorithms.

Team Members: Tyler Cady, Matthew Dworkin, Ignacio Galindo, Natasha Narayanan, Annie Vallamattam

One returning client organization was the Sustainability Solutions Group & Institute’s Center for Sustainable Communities.

“We like to give them real-world problems, not just stuff that's made up out of thin air,” client and Georgia Tech alumnus Garry Harris said. "We feed them articles, webinars, and relevant papers throughout the process. They build an inventory of knowledge that drives the project and invest in it because it’s important.”

Student Daniel Long, who worked with Harris’s company, appreciated the collaborative structure. “He gave us a detailed vision but left the implementation up to us. We worked with him to define features and implemented them in two-week iterations. He was always open to our ideas and gave us consistent feedback.”

Another student group, Team Spark, collaborated with Sentinel Devices, a first-time client, to create a dashboard visualizing real-time sensor data.

“Part of the real-world challenge for them was being persistent and communicating what they needed,” said CEO Forrest Shriver.

He added that he met with the team multiple times in person, and their ideas made the project more efficient. “It’s been awesome so far because it’s allowed us to explore more opportunities, adding onto our product that we wouldn’t have had otherwise.”

Spark team member Jenny Lee explained, “Their devices provide sensor data in real time, and our job was to turn that into something useful and readable for the user.”

Teammate Daiwik Pal said, “We didn’t touch any code at first. We spent a semester aligning with the client’s goals before implementation began.”

Each team balanced creativity and technical rigor, and the Spring 2025 CS Junior Design Capstone Expo offered a compelling look at how students are already making an impact beyond the classroom.

More photos of the expo can be found here.

Summary sentence

Summary

Held on April 21 in the Georgia Tech Exhibition Hall, the event highlighted the technical skills and creativity of third- and fourth-year students in the School of Computing Instruction.

Dateline

Thu, 04/24/2025 - 12:00

emily.smith@cc.gatech.edu

Associated importer

Keywords

CS Junior Design Capstone

cs junior design capstone expo

College of Computing

school of computing instruction

Categories

Education

Exhibitions

Student Competition WInners (academic, innovation, and research)

Mercury ID

682002

Source updated

Thu, 04/24/2025 - 10:28

Ramblin’ Hacks: College of Computing Hosts Inaugural Hackathon

dgivens8 — Tue, 22 Apr 2025 13:25:41 +0000

Ramblin’ Hacks: College of Computing Hosts Inaugural Hackathon dgivens8 Tue, 04/22/2025 - 09:25

The College of Computing hosted its first-ever hackathon this month, marking a major milestone in student engagement and corporate partnership.

Though the College has long supported hackathons organized by student groups and independent teams, this event, dubbed Ramblin’ Hacks, was the first to be exclusively organized and hosted by the College.

“This was a big deal,” Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education Olufisayo Omojokun said. “It’s the first time the College has put its resources—people, funding, everything—behind a hackathon from start to finish.”

The Power of Partnership

Industry partners were crucial to the event’s success. Sponsors included Elevance Health, Goldman Sachs, U.S. Soccer, GEICO, FanDuel, Microsoft, and The Trade Desk. These companies provided valuable support through the Corporate Affiliates Program (CAP).

“Ramblin’ Hacks 2025 was a huge success in bringing together top talent and industry innovation. It was exciting to see so much interest from our corporate partners. I’m proud of the wide-ranging set of challenge tracks we helped curate,” Corporate Relations Manager Alyshia Lenoir said.

Lenoir, who initially proposed the idea for a student-organized hackathon, played a key role in expanding it into a College-wide event.

The College’s Constellations Center for Education in Computing also supported the event by recruiting several local high school students and running a separate coding session in partnership with the United States Soccer Federation.

A Community-Driven Experience

A conversation between student leaders and Aarush Yadav, a first-year student and veteran hackathon winner, sparked the idea for Ramblin’ Hacks. When Yadav sought funding to attend a hackathon at Rutgers University, where he ultimately won, the conversation turned to the possibility of hosting a hackathon at Georgia Tech. That idea quickly gained traction and evolved into Ramblin’ Hacks, which brought together 31 student teams for a weekend of innovation and collaboration.

Yadav played a key role in the planning team, saying, “It was amazing to see our hard work finally materialize. Participants worked tirelessly over the weekend to create incredible projects and win amazing prizes. I’m looking forward to executing Ramblin’ Hacks in the years to come.”

Omojokun highlighted Yadav’s dual perspective as both a student and a competitor.

“He wasn’t just a participant; he helped build this with us. It made a real difference to have a student who knows what success looks like from the inside,” Omojokun said.

Director of Community and Student Enrichment Troy Peace emphasized this and how the event brought together students with varying experience levels.

“We had students who had never been to a hackathon before sitting next to people who had already won several,” Peace said. “That kind of atmosphere builds confidence and community.”

Ekta Raj, a computer science major, called Ramblin’ Hacks “one of the best” hackathons she’s attended, praising the event’s structure and collaborative atmosphere for how easy it was for teams to work together.

Looking Ahead

Student Organization Manager Oniecia Henry reflected on the event’s success, saying, “The creativity, the collaboration, the support from our partners all came together in a meaningful way. I think this is just the beginning of something much bigger for the College of Computing.”

Looking to the future, Omojokun shared plans for a credit-based engagement system to track student participation in College events, such as hackathons and workshops. This system could influence funding and support, and the credits could then be factored into budget decisions and funding opportunities through Pitch Thursdays.

“Imagine a world where your club’s participation directly influences the support you get from the College,” Omojokun said. “It’s a way to reward students who are actively building this community.”

As Ramblin’ Hacks sets the stage for future events, the College is committed to expanding these experiential learning opportunities, linking problem-solving, corporate collaboration, and student initiative.

Subtitle

Summary sentence

The College of Computing hosted its first-ever hackathon this month.

Summary

Dateline

Thu, 04/17/2025 - 12:00

emily.smith@cc.gatech.edu

Associated importer

Keywords

College of Computing

Hackathon

school of computing instruction

Categories

Community

Education

Student Competition WInners (academic, innovation, and research)

Mercury ID

681945

Source updated

Tue, 04/22/2025 - 09:24

PatchPals Wins People's Choice Award at the 2025 ACC InVenture Prize

dgivens8 — Mon, 21 Apr 2025 17:41:39 +0000

PatchPals Wins People's Choice Award at the 2025 ACC InVenture Prize dgivens8 Mon, 04/21/2025 - 13:41

Subtitle

Summary sentence

University of Notre Dame, April 2025

Summary

PatchPals pitching their invention that could improve wound care for chronic patients and efficiency in healthcare systems wins the People's Choice Award at the ACC InVenture Prize, hosted at the University of Notre Dame in April 2025.

Dateline

Wed, 04/02/2025 - 12:00

Associated importer

Categories

Student Competition WInners (academic, innovation, and research)

Mercury ID

681924

Source updated

Mon, 04/21/2025 - 13:41

Student Competition WInners (academic, innovation, and research)

Georgia Tech Team Takes Second Place at ICRA Robot Teleoperation Contest

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Categories

Klaus Startup Challenge Showcases Georgia Tech's Rising Entrepreneurial Talent

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News room topics

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Brain-Inspired AI Breakthrough Spotlighted at Global Conference

Brain-inspired blueprints

Neuro-AI innovations

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Best of ISyE and Capstone Design Expo 2025

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Category 1. Senior Design Finalists are:

Category 2. Senior Design Honorable Mentions are:

Category 3. Design with Implementation and Impact, sponsored by KS2 Technologies

Category 4. Featured ISyE Create-X project

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Student Innovation Shines at Spring 2025 CS Junior Design Capstone Expo

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Ramblin’ Hacks: College of Computing Hosts Inaugural Hackathon

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PatchPals Wins People's Choice Award at the 2025 ACC InVenture Prize

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