We are proud to introduce our 10 finalist teams.  Whether they are working to improve the quality of education, the health of individuals or groups across the world or disaster preparation and relief systems - we believe each of these teams have innovative and entrepreneurial solutions that will have great social impact around the world.  Each finalist team has been awarded $5,000, mentorship, and space at the i-lab as well as full access to its resources.  Please follow our page for updates and come see the results of their hard work at the President’s Challenge Demo Day on Tuesday May 7th at 11:00am – 2:00pm.

Learning

• Empowerment Through Integration is an outreach program that seeks to encourage disadvantaged, blind youth to explore and achieve their career goals while combating the social stigma against blindness. 
• Zen Way Inc. strives to disrupt the standardized test preparation market and higher education application processes by offering free and low-cost tools for online self-study, starting with the LSAT.  Their tool, based on an algorithm, personalizes the test prep experience for standardized test-takers with an aim to increase access to high-quality educational materials.
• Flume is a web tool to crowd-source expertise from participants around the world and at all levels of expertise to build and maintain a highly detailed, current map of the human genome.  Users will have a better understanding of the genome and enable a more open scientific community benefiting academic research, industrial applications and biological education.

Energy & Environment

• TerraTek is a social enterprise that focuses on helping individuals, municipalities and communities determine their existing land rights in a transparent and secure manner to settle land disputes and map and organize property rights in developing countries.

Health

• Healo is a mobile app that allows doctors to remotely monitor their patients’ wound-healing progress through a detailed time-lapse pictorial record, enabling medical care providers to maintain a higher quality of care while reducing the number of costly follow-up visits.
• PlenOptika is a venture producing a low-cost handheld device that prescribes glasses with the click of a button, eliminating a huge barrier of obtaining appropriate eyeglasses in remote or low-income settings due to the acute shortage of trained professionals in those areas.
• Quantamerix is inventing a low-cost diagnostic device that will eliminate the need for large centralized labs to process the millions of newborn screens for easily treatable diseases that are skipped every day.

Disaster Preparation & Relief

• Nucleik has developed an online information management system that reduces the time law enforcement spends on information collection, management, analysis and reporting by 90 percent—giving police officers more time to protect neighborhoods.

The Arts

• Kartis is an interactive social web platform using mapping coupled with a social network to overcome barriers to collaboration.  The real-time map of the nonprofit sector will show where current needs are being served, where needs are unmet, and where collaboration between complementary services could be fostered to maximize impact and increase the efficiency of delivering aid.
• Sightline Productions is a group of artists, scientists and educators who are passionate about creating impact through the production and sharing of original artistic works focused on genetics and health.  Through the process of bringing people’s stories to life they hope to impact both those who have something to tell and something to learn.