The Innovation & Entrepreneurship Challenge (I&E) streamlines award opportunities for venture funding for Johns Hopkins University students. Award amounts vary from $10,000 to $30,000. Student winners also receive pro bono services, mentorship, and networking events with other members of the I&E cohort.
Here’s a look at several I&E winners from previous years.
Ananya Tandri & Droply (2023)
Ananya Tandri, a 2023 I&E winner, is a biomedical engineering PhD student at Johns Hopkins. Her startup, Droply, is developing an eye drop application device.
Since winning I&E, Tandri participated in the Spring 2024 Spark cohort winning the Judges’ Prize at the Spark Showcase. She’s also worked with MBA students to develop pitch and advertising materials.
Beyond the technical challenge of developing blink detection technologies using computer vision, one of Tandri’s goals is to learn more about the commercialization process.
“The overall challenge is, how do you put something out in the world?” she said. “The win is seeing the enthusiasm through all of it. There’s also the wins in the prototyping process.”
Michael McCreary & Teaching Tools (2023)
Michael McCreary (KSAS ’23) founded Teaching Tools, a venture focused on technology for effective and inclusive college teaching when he was a PhD student in comparative thought and literature at Johns Hopkins. McCreary, a 2023 I&E winner, is now an educational developer at Goucher College and continues to work on Teaching Tools.
“This startup is the tech side of my professional portfolio where I get to build things that empower other people who are working in roles like me,” McCreary said.
Teaching Tools first developed a lesson planning tool, pivoting several times since then. Most recently, the startup has pivoted from a B2C model to a more B2B model with products that can help institutions evaluate teachers more holistically. Teaching Tools also moved towards a partnership or co-development model, collaborating with a coalition of institutions that are interested in more holistic teaching evaluations. McCreary said that he would like to continue moving towards the institutional sales model.
He also emphasized that entrepreneurship could be meaningful for a wide variety of students.
“Sometimes folks in the humanities write off entrepreneurship writ large as an embodiment of capitalist culture. I want student entrepreneurs to know that the Pava Center does a good job of making space for all entrepreneurs.”
Spencer Shumway & Eden Therapeutics (2022)
Since winning I&E in 2022, Eden Therapeutics co-founder Spencer Shumway (WSE ’22), has transitioned to an advisory role at the company while focusing on other ventures in his portfolio.
Eden is currently validating the final version of their prototype in preparation for a human feasibility study at Johns Hopkins Hospital this summer, in collaboration with the Human Aging Project.
“We’ve been waiting to approach venture capital or investors in general until we’ve built out our data foundation, so we’re very excited about this study,” Shumway said. “We appreciate the support from [the Pava Center] in terms of the award and everything that they’ve done for us.”
The trajectories of these recent I&E winners highlight the spectrum of startups affiliated with the Pava Center and at Johns Hopkins. For more funding opportunities associated with the Pava Center, visit this page.