Cornell Tech awarded four student startup companies with pre-seed funding worth up to $100,000 in its eighth annual Startup Awards competition, announced at Cornell Tech’s virtual Open Studio, held May 26.

Open Studio is the end-of-year celebration of startups and presentation of cutting-edge research, projects, and companies founded at Cornell Tech. A panel of tech industry leaders and executives, along with members of the Cornell and Cornell Tech faculty and staff, selected the winning student teams.

“After over a year of working from home, these students have still found a way to build sustainable, tangible solutions to problems New Yorkers and the general public experience daily,” said Greg Morrisett, the Jack and Rilla Neafsey Dean and Vice Provost of Cornell Tech. “I’m so proud of this year’s group of Startup Awards finalists; they’ve been able to create these amazing projects all while working virtually during quite a tumultuous year.”

Startup Awards winners for 2021:

• Adiona: an in-cabin medical emergency detection and response system for semi and fully autonomous vehicles;
• BioBeat: a device that helps athletes avoid injury by monitoring their performance in real-time through sensors fitted into their athletic gear;
• Ikori: a vertically integrated fashion platform where designers list their fashion designs, shoppers pre-order these designs, and independent manufacturers from across the globe produce the garments; and
• Oilo: which uses data-driven processes to increase the value of small and mid-sized businesses’ fleets by reducing their operational costs, risks and inefficiencies.

“There was no shortage of fantastic ideas during this year’s Open Studio, even through a difficult year for both our students and the education sector at large,” said Kevin Yien, head of Startup Studio at Cornell Tech. “The pandemic accelerated certain trends and pushed us to rethink how we look at common problems. This year’s winners have proven that with their creativity and perseverance.”

Read the full story on the Cornell Tech website.