Award Nominees
2024 U21 RISE Showcase and Awards UMD Nominees:
BetterU
Project leader: Saurabh Chapagain, Undergraduate, Technology Entrepreneurship, 2025
BetterU helps people become the best versions of themselves in a fun & social way! The project is centered on empowering individuals with its habit-tracking solution, and addresses the challenge of promoting and sustaining healthy lifestyle habits. By providing users with tools to track and improve their wellness, the platform contributes directly to the goal of ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being for all at all ages. BetterU's focus on encouraging consistent and positive health habits enables individuals to take proactive steps toward their well-being. This not only supports personal health outcomes but also contributes to the broader objective of creating a healthier global population.
Dialectable
Project leader: Michelle Akem, Undergraduate, Biology/Information Science, 2026
The project's mission is to facilitate cultural preservation and deeper social connections through learning a common language. Dialectable is a cultural app that includes conversation-based minigames, goal trackers, and unlockable avatars for Bangwa immigrants to learn or relearn Nweh using ancestral knowledge. The app will also allow users to write about their progress and plan specific goals to achieve within a certain deadline for accountability and create flashcard sets for a different target language. Dialectable would bridge the gap between immigrants who want to learn their native language as an English speaker by using accessible, relatable resources and appealing to the social connection they can gain from language.
2024 Office of International Affairs Special Award Recipients:
CerviCare
Project team leaders: Lauren Applegate, Biochemistry, 2027; Jonathan Wu, Computer Science, 2027; Navya Bansal, Bioengineering, 2027; Renee Jaranson , Bioengineering, 2026; Jonathon Meyer, Cell Biology and Genetics, 2027; Abhi Senthilkumar, Chemical Engineering, 2026
CerviCare, a project by the UMaryland iGEM Team, focuses on improving cervical precancer screening accessibility, with a particular focus on reducing inequality. Early stages of cervical cancer are treatable; however, screening for cervical precancer, used as an indicator for cervical cancer progression, is hard to access in lower- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where 90% of cervical cancer deaths occur. The project aims to lessen this disparity through designing and building an easy-to-store, point-of-care screening device project leveraging synthetic biology, making early detection easy and accessible.
Additional Team Members:
Ashley DeHennis; Sarah Firdaus; Mia Jocic; Valeria Salas Dietz; Aditri Gadigi; Mahita Kamalahasan; Graham Ferguson; Kevin Zhang; Haider Hassain; Sami Kudagunti; Aditi Namputhiripad; Krista Adu-Osei; Rebecca Lu; Dana Harel; Miranda Wang; Trinidad Cubillos Valdes; Patricia Rose; Yeabsira Belay; Krishna Kunamaneni; Dasha Didenko.
Kulqi
Project leader: Mary Adela Sangurima Loayza, Master of Finance, 2024
Kulqi is a personal finance app that simplifies money management for young adults. Kulqi’s goal is to narrow the financial knowledge gap. It offers easy-to-use tools and technology to help users of all financial backgrounds become more self-sufficient and make smarter financial decisions. Unique to Kulqi is its financial forecasting feature, which helps users plan their future, setting it apart from other apps.