Meet the Impact Studio’s Fall 2026 Cohort!
Impact Studio’s Fall 2026 cohort at the BCG Detroit office
Every semester, the Impact Studio has the opportunity to accept a new cohort of the brightest and best entrepreneurs at the University of Michigan, all focused on one specific goal: Building a better world. This fall, we are excited to announce our latest group of Founders and Fellows, bringing fresh ideas to the market. Over the next 3 months, they will work to build and grow their businesses, tackling core issues for social impact.
Meet the Ventures
Akuraa (John Ebot, MBA ‘27)
We connect families with short-term care professionals in a flexible, reliable way, making care easier to find, schedule, and manage. We aim to reduce caregiver stress and give families more peace of mind that their loved one will have the help they need.
Amina (Thet Htar Nwe, BS ‘28)
We handle period pain, absorption, and tracking together, through proprietary underwear combining leak protection with a rechargeable heating pad for cramps and an app for symptom tracking.
BiliRoo (Daniel John, MD ‘29)
We have developed BiliRoo, the world’s simplest phototherapy — a non-electric, low-cost medical device designed to treat the millions of infants with jaundice globally. BiliRoo is a wearable infant sling that harnesses filtered sunlight to treat jaundice all while keeping infants in skin-to-skin contact with their parents.
DeepTrace (Akhila Joshi, MSI ‘28)
We provide structured observations for marine conservation researchers by turning scuba divers’ underwater footage into concrete data. This provides divers and dive centers with a citizen-science role and researchers with cheaper field data.
Discover Akin LLC (Jane Kim, MBA ’27; Tanya Tyagi, MBA ’27; and Gaurangi Gupta, MBA ‘27)
We fight loneliness and deepen ties to a user’s own neighborhood through a mobile app for discovering local creative and community events. Discover Akin is particularly targeted towards Gen Z and Millennial customers who want to reconnect with their area and creative pursuits.
Elder AI (H. Bruce Ferguson-Augutus, MBA ‘28)
We help young professionals who face burnout, fear, and isolation by providing 24/7 emotionally intelligent AI guidance. This platform offers real-time, on-demand support and companionship, specifically tailored to navigate the unique, daily challenges of major life pivots.
goTeff, Inc. (Saron Mechale, MBA/MS ‘27)
We fight the spike and crash of conventional snacks through a teff-based snack line and subscription box for endurance athletes and health-conscious consumers. A share of profits funds school lunches and athletic gear for young female athletes in Ethiopia through a partner organization.
Helping Hand AI (Alexander Arda Cetinel, MSI ‘28)
We protect older adults living independently from undetected falls and safety events through passive AI monitoring that alerts family caregivers who can’t watch around the clock.
Kove Koffee (Lidia Cappelletti, BBA and BA ’27; and Zachary Sieloff, BBA ‘27)
We eliminate the single-use packaging waste of coffee pods and cups through a plastic-free coffee product with a rapid brewing process. We support busy professionals and travelers who want convenient coffee without packaging or machinery.
Language Up Games (Hayden Gandolfi, MSI ‘28)
We support language and executive functioning skills through educational apps built with accessibility and assistive technology features. Alongside structured interventions and printable materials, our apps are used by educators, clinicians, and individuals, including people with disabilities.
Nurtured (Faith Fells, MBA ‘27)
We help people who give heavily to work and family with affordable in-person wellness programming built around movement, food, education, and community. At the same time, we provide local wellness entrepreneurs a place to test and grow their offerings.
redclover impact (Jay Osterman, MA ‘27)
We are a full-service 501(c)(3) impact partner that helps athletes and sports leaders give back to their communities the way red clover feeds the soil it grows in. We use human-centered design thinking to build bespoke giving programs rooted in each athlete’s passion, then run everything behind the scenes, making it easy to invite their fans to join them in driving lasting impact at home.
Savia Capital (Ivana Vera Sanchez, BSE ‘29)
We protect urban micro-entrepreneurs in emerging markets from predatory lenders through a platform pairing flexible revolving credit lines with personalized business mentorship. Our goal is to help local shop owners not just survive, but thrive in their communities, despite a lack of access to traditional capital.
Seat at the Table (Braylen Stevens, MSI ‘27)
We provide experiences of influence that foster community, inspiration, and talent development. Connecting rising leaders between the ages of 21–35, we help bridge the gap between young professionals and executives across various industries. The Milwaukee-based initiative has grown from 40 professionals to well over 100 in the last year.
The Care Kits Project (Lilyana Raishouni, BBA and BS ’27; and Alexander Thweni, BBA ‘27)
We run hands-on workshops for K-8 students in underserved communities through schools, shelters, and youth organizations. Each student builds one first-aid kit to keep and one to donate.
The Clarity Compass (Shantaisa King, MSI ‘27)
We help early-stage founders and organizations make clearer decisions before investing significant time or money in the wrong next move. Through our Clarity Compass framework and UX-informed support, we help teams surface risky assumptions, identify what needs to be validated next, and turn uncertainty into concrete outputs such as diagnostic snapshots, prototypes, and targeted digital/UX reviews.
The Currency of Grief (Justin Weidenfeld, MBA ‘28)
We help families talk about money, estate planning, and legacy while everyone is still here to have the conversation. Through facilitated family legacy retreats, coaching families and executors, and hosting workshops, we prepare the people, not just the assets, so families stay together through loss and wealth transfer.
The Ohio Newsroom (Clare Roth, Knight Wallace Fellow ‘27)
We serve rural Ohio communities that have lost their news sources through local reporting that is broadcast statewide. Our longer-term aim is a model other regional newsrooms can copy.
ThermaMound (Michael Ettlinger, MEng and MS ‘26)
We minimize environmental impact by cutting data center cooling consumption and improving power usage effectiveness through engineering designs at the water-energy nexus. We sell to data center infrastructure developers and engineering firms, with data center operators as the end users.
Tinu AI (Kelvin Chang, MSI ‘27)
We help organizations preserve the knowledge behind their work: why decisions were made, what’s been tried, and what experienced employees know that never gets written down. We capture that context from everyday work and lightweight employee input, turning it into searchable institutional memory. We’re starting with Midwestern utilities and other critical infrastructure operators, where retaining that expertise is especially important for safe, reliable operations.
TinyBit (Krish Dhawan, BSE ‘29)
We bring missed medication doses and early decline in elders to caregiver attention within the hour rather than months later through a daily check-in service that initiates conversation with them. We keep adult children up to date, providing peace of mind that their loved one is safe and healthy.
ToothSync (Carter Bell, BS ‘27)
We help dental patients signal pain and communicate needs when language, hearing loss, neurodivergence, or dementia makes speaking difficult. Our low-cost, multilingual tool needs minimal technology or training and doesn’t disrupt office flow.
Unsaid (Micaela Ciambrone, MSI ‘27)
We help young adults who carry difficult or stigmatized childhood experiences move away from coping alone. We’re building a guided experience that helps people find language for what they’ve lived through, decide how much to share, and choose who they trust, so they can feel understood by someone already in their life, on their own terms.
Victors Bridge (Jackson Muir, BBA ‘27)
We combat high private coaching rates by giving youth athletes aged 13–17 and their parents a marketplace where Division I athletes sell their own structured training programs. Programs cost a fraction of private coaching, while giving Division I athletes an opportunity to positively impact younger players.
Vori (Suhyun Lim, MSI ‘28)
We combat cost and institutional barriers to pediatric cognitive therapy for neurodivergent children with ADHD or autism. Our in-school virtual-reality platform tracks neuro-data, adapting each session to each child, with the aim of improving long-term cognitive outcomes.
Impact Studio Fellows
In addition to our semester’s founders, we are also excited to welcome our team of Applebaum Impact Design Fellows, a diverse team using their skills to guide and work alongside our Founders as they decide their path to market and beyond. Applebaum Impact Design Fellows are sponsored by Applebaum Family Philanthropy.
We are beyond excited to see where our Founders go this semester and beyond. The work they are doing for social impact is incredible, and their businesses make ripples in the University of Michigan community and beyond.