Bold Purdue student solutions take center stage at Moonshot Pitch Challenge

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Four teams of Purdue University students won a combined $5,500 from Purdue Innovates Incubator during the finals of the Moonshot Pitch Challenge, a semiannual ideation-focused competition.

Fifteen finalist teams had two minutes to pitch their solutions to judges. Winning teams ideated solutions that address medical, battery and business challenges.

Active Purdue undergraduate and graduate students across all colleges were eligible to compete. More than 50 teams submitted a two-minute video to explain the problem they were addressing and to propose their solution. Solutions were grouped into one of three categories:

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

“Purdue students who participate in the Moonshot Pitch Challenge are taking the next giant leaps to solve global challenges,” said Doug Applegate, Incubator associate director. “This platform encourages the ideation of bold, audacious solutions.”

Submissions for the spring 2026 Moonshot Pitch Challenge will begin in January.

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:

Orbit category and Best Pitch: SpheriLine. SpheriLine is a redesigned central line that minimizes patient discomfort and reduces the opportunity for infection and sepsis. Backed by nurses and reviewed by professionals, SpheriLine seeks to improve treatment plans.

Team members are Kelly Fulk, College of Engineering; Maxwell Gootee, College of Health and Human Sciences.

Gootee said the funding will support the development and research of a new medical-grade SpheriLine prototype.

“This will really help show investors that our idea has merit, but it also goes to show nurses that we are doing our best to make their voices heard so they can best support patients across the U.S.,” he said.

Gootee said he and Fulk benefited connecting with other Purdue innovators and entrepreneurs during the Moonshot Pitch Challenge.

“Surrounding yourself with people that drive you to work harder and do better is a great way to ensure that you never stop working to do the best you can,” he said. “Collaboration enables large impact, and we believe working alongside Purdue Innovates and other groups will help us to take SpheriLine to the stratosphere!”

Earth category: Mirri. Type 1 diabetes is complex and unpredictable. Mirri helps by tracking patterns, offering personalized insights and guiding smarter insulin adjustments, empowering users to confidently manage any situation.

Team members are Donald Kaplan and Greg Powers, College of Engineering.

Powers said the funding will support behind-the-scenes work at Mirri.

“This includes operational costs and educational tools like our website and clinic materials that make our launch of Mirri possible,” he said.

Powers said the Moonshot Pitch Challenge provided Mirri with invaluable mentoring.

“We pushed ourselves to refine our pitch, strengthen our product vision and sharpen our go-to-market strategy,” he said. “We came away with new insights, skills and confidence that will carry us forward as a team.”

Moonshot category: Biocell. Biocell is a biodegradable battery made from lignin and a drop of sugar water, breaking down harmlessly. By replacing lithium and zinc cells for single-use electronics, Biocell transforms industrial waste into clean energy.

Team members are Sai Kasturi Kamila and Mayuka Valluri, College of Engineering.

Valluri said the funding provides Biocell with the flexibility to explore opportunities that align with its mission and long-term vision.

“It will allow us to consider future research directions and gives us the confidence to further explore the idea’s potential,” she said.

Valluri said participating in the Moonshot Pitch Challenge helped her and Kamila refine how they communicate their ideas to diverse audiences.

“We strengthened our ability as engineers to present technical concepts clearly to people of all backgrounds,” she said.

Crowd Favorite Award: Evergreet AI. Evergreet AI creates custom AI receptionists and websites for service-based businesses. These systems schedule, answer questions specific to the business and transfer calls.

Kyle Weese of the Polytechnic Institute created Evergreet AI. He said the funding will be put toward computer hardware and the services used to create his systems.

“A lot of the work I’m currently doing is for free, so this money will allow me to continue to make my product better,” he said.

Weese said his favorite part of the Moonshot Pitch Challenge was meeting other student entrepreneurs and innovators.

“Seeing how much work the other teams put into their projects was super motivating, and I got to make some really cool friends,” he said.

Honor roll of finalists and judges

Other Moonshot Pitch Challenge finalist teams were:

• DoseMate. DoseMate helps underserved patients take the right medication at the right time with automated dispensing; reminders; caregiver alerts; and clear, translatable instructions. Narain Bala, Mitch Daniels School of Business.

• Electrocean Inc. By doing electrochemical removal of carbon dioxide in the ocean instead of next to it, Electrocean unlocks billions of dollars’ worth of new markets from enhanced aquaculture to the shoreline resilience market. Gabriel Boyd, College of Engineering; Faith Qin, Stanford University; Jason Qin, University of California, Berkeley.

• Eternasec. Eternasec is the first unbreakable cybersecurity platform, combining tamperproof hardware, a verified operating system, quantum encryption and AI to eliminate breaches and set the global standard for trust in the post-quantum era. Zubin Sidhu, College of Science and Certificate in Entrepreneurship and Innovation.

• Nexus. Nexus replaces Earth’s energy-guzzling AI data centers with autonomous computing satellites in space, using free solar power and natural cooling for truly limitless, sustainable and scalable AI infrastructure. Devak Chowdary Charapalle, College of Engineering and Certificate in Entrepreneurship and Innovation; Chakravarthy Mallarapu, College of Engineering.

• PhotoPal. PhotoPal is an expert photographer AI that conversationally guides unskilled photographers and models with instructions, prompts and encouragement to create tailored, beautiful shots. Linzhi Ji, Polytechnic Institute; Eileen Koh, College of Science.

• Polistock. Polistock delivers real-time AI-driven market volatility alerts by monitoring Securities and Exchange Commission filings, political social media, and news sources. It democratizes institutional-grade market intelligence for retail investors. Aryan Kiran Chamarajanagar and Aditya Pachpande, College of Science and Certificate in Entrepreneurship and Innovation; Nivan Gujral and Mahit Mehta, College of Science.

• Quitbar. Quitbar is a revolutionary new device designed for vaping cessation. It integrates the proven science behind nicotine replacement therapy into a smart, pharmaceutically prescribed device. Cristian Barinaga, College of Engineering; Zhixin Cai and Brayden Reimann, College of Science; Ally Loquasto, College of Health and Human Sciences and Daniels School of Business.

• RAD Solutions. RAD Solutions increases data access in agriculture by automatically translating data into insight for farmers. Our drone system collects multispectral images and translates them into actionable steps to improve crop health and yield. Tim Ausec, College of Engineering; Ismael De Lara, College of Agriculture; Patrick Jordan, College of Engineering and Daniels School of Business.

• Revere. Revere is a mobile platform that helps organizations mobilize members by sharing issue posts with context, scripts and legislator contacts, making it easy for people to call representatives and push for change. Simon Bosslet, Sanil Shetty and Sabareesh Vasudevan, College of Science.

• SkinFit. SkinFit is a science-driven platform using skin tests and AI to create personalized skin IDs to help users choose products that are safe and make them feel beautiful. Diya Pidatala, Polytechnic Institute; Shaivi Wankhede, Daniels School of Business.

• Voices Unheard. Voices Unheard is an AI-powered transcription platform fine-tuned for African American Vernacular English and other underrepresented dialects, delivering accurate, fair and context-aware transcripts in courts where standard automatic speech recognition systems often distort meaning. Keisuke Nakamura, Daniel Park and Liam Stonestreet, College of Science; Emma Mahan, Polytechnic Institute.

Larry Fultz, Mike Hiles, Joe Indiano, Pat O’Connor and Lucas Woody served as judges during the Moonshot Pitch Challenge finals.

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 university leading with excellence at scale. Ranked among top 10 public universities in the United States, Purdue discovers, disseminates and deploys knowledge with a quality and at a scale second to none. More than 106,000 students study at Purdue across multiple campuses, locations and modalities, including more than 57,000 at our main campus in West Lafayette and Indianapolis. Committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue’s main campus has frozen tuition 14 years in a row. See how Purdue never stops in the persistent pursuit of the next giant leap — including its comprehensive urban expansion, the Mitch Daniels School of Business, Purdue Computes and the One Health initiative — at https://www.purdue.edu/president/strategic-initiatives.