The Pava Marie LaPere Center for Entrepreneurship wrapped its Fall 2025 accelerator programs—Kindling, Spark, and Fuel—each designed to ignite ideas and scale ventures. From early-stage concepts to market-ready solutions, the Pava Center showcased the entrepreneurial spirit thriving at Johns Hopkins.
Kindling: Where Ideas Begin
Kindling, the entry-level accelerator, celebrated big opportunities for high impact. This semester’s winners reflected the diversity of ideas shaping the future:
- First Place ($700):
- Recyclords: A team looking at opportunities to better understand and utilize idle waste products for a more sustainable future.
- Weildflower Arts: A team looking at opportunities to connect performers to their audiences by reducing the friction to book performance spaces.
- Oops We Scaled it Again: A team looking at opportunities to improve healthcare recommendations outside of the annual check-up.
- Second Place ($500):
- Guardians of the Truth: A team looking at opportunities to protect individuals from AI misinformation.
- Aida: A team looking at opportunities to improve insulin dosing for type 1 diabetics.
- Team Real: A team looking at opportunities to improve a long accepted education resource for jazz musicians.
- Audience Choice ($300):
- Bytesysed: A team looking at opportunities in nutrition education for busy individuals.
- ND Link: A team looking at opportunities to improve neurodiverse individuals’ career outcomes via educational programming for employers.
- Livena: A team looking at opportunities to reduce stigma and improve therapy options for those with the herpes virus.
Kindling emphasizes curiosity and risk-taking. Entrepreneurship is about being curious, building for needs, and connecting with the right people. The pre-ideation program is designed to ignite the entrepreneurial spirit in students who are eager to start their own ventures but are unsure where to begin.
Isabelle Nguyen Phuoc from Oops We Scaled it Again, shared, “This experience reinforced how successful ventures are built on validated problems, evidence-based insights, and a clear understanding of both people and markets.”
Tanya Nair from Recyclords added, “I’m also grateful to the community organizations, industry experts, and students who shared their perspectives during our interviews; their insights were essential to shaping our research. We deeply appreciated the opportunity to learn more about the startup space and develop strong, data-driven market research skills.”
Spark: Igniting Early-Stage Ventures
Spark supported more than 50 student teams over 12 weeks of workshops, office hours, and peer mastermind sessions. Each team received a $500 stipend, and eight ventures earned additional recognition during the Spark Showcase. The showcase heard presentations in morning and afternoon sessions at the Pava Center, resulting in eight total winners.
- First Place ($2,000):
- Qube: A molecular hydrogen electrolyte designed to enhance athletic performance and recovery. Founder Quinn O’Donnell shared, “Athletes deserve better than incomplete solutions. We’re redefining what it means to recover.”
- Injex: Innovating injection technology for safer, more efficient drug delivery.
- EligioAI: AI-powered platform analyzes unstructured clinical data to recommend the right specialist quickly, reducing delays, and administrative burden
- Mindful Communications: Building technology that integrates emotional intelligence into digital communication.
- Second Place ($500):
- Chimera: A validation layer for bug bounty programs, cutting through noise to deliver actionable security insights.
- DuctStream: AI-powered HVAC drafting tools that streamline design and fabrication workflows.
- Menstrualytics: A deep-learning app that quantifies menstrual blood loss, addressing a critical gap in women’s health diagnostics.
- ConTrack: AI-first contract intelligence for construction firms, reducing disputes and compliance risks
Judges praised the caliber of ideas. Selena Shirkin, co-founder of Fetal Therapy Technologies, said, “Every solution I’ve seen is rooted in a real problem and a need.” Jake Dreier, assistant director of the Pava Center, added, “Entrepreneurship is not a golden idea—it’s a muscle you can build.”
Fuel: Scaling Ventures for Impact
Fuel, the Pava Center’s upper-level accelerator, welcomed 11 ventures from over 85 applicants. Each team received a $5,000 stipend and competed for additional prizes during Fuel Demo Day.
The winners:
- Judges’ Grand Prize ($15,000): Probiotic Cleaner Co.
- Tackling healthcare-associated infections, Probiotic Cleaner Co. is pioneering probiotic-based sanitation systems that competitively exclude pathogens and reduce hospital-acquired infections. Founder William Brakewood called the award “a massive surprise—really exciting and validating. We’re looking forward to putting this money to good use.”
- Audience Choice Award ($5,000): Altera Labs
- Addressing the “cognitive offloading crisis” in education by creating an AI-powered active learning platform.
- Cohort Prize ($3,000): Veina Vascular
- A novel blood collection device designed to draw blood without introducing hemolysis, providing patients with accurate lab results every time. Our technology prevents repeat blood draws, enhances clinical decision-making, and reduces delays in care.
Fuel participants emphasized the program’s impact. “The connections we’ve made have been exceptional,” said Brakewood. “It’s motivating to be surrounded by such amazing work.”
Saardhak Bhrugubanda and Natasha Mody from Veina both shared similar sentiments, noting that they learned from other teams by getting the opportunity to practice pitching to each other.
“Both of us have been interested in entrepreneurship for a while,” said Bhrugubanda. “Through our master’s program and the Fuel accelerator, we were able to find a need that really mattered to clinicians and patients.”
From creative arts to life-saving medical devices, the Fall 2025 cohort exemplifies the Pava Center’s mission to turn ideas into impact. As these ventures move forward with funding, mentorship, and market strategies, they represent the next wave of entrepreneurial leaders shaping health, technology, and society.