Announcing the 2024 Accelerator Demo Day Winner

What a remarkable day it was at the 2024 HarvardAE Accelerator Demo Day!

On May 15, Demo Day showcased ten exceptional alumni ventures, highlighting the depth of talent emerging from Harvard

Congratulations to the winner of Demo Day GuardianSat. Led by Harvard Kennedy School alum Chris Rohe, GuardianSat will now compete at the Startup World Cup and the chance to win a $ 1 million investment from Pegasus Tech Ventures.

The first runner-up is Sugarwork, co-founded by Vanessa Liu (Harvard Radcliffe and HLS) and Judith Williams (Harvard Radcliffe). Sugarwork is an AI-powered platform for capturing and sharing institutional knowledge during employee transitions.

Congratulations goes to all the 2024 teams:

·      Amiable: Founded by Olga Gomonova, Harvard Business School

·      Berilium: Founded by Alberto Guillen Salas, Harvard Business School

·      Delfino AI: Founded by Sneh Patel, Harvard Business School

·      FanEQT: Founded by Usman Shuja, Harvard Kennedy School

·      Fiduciary In A Box: Founded by Jed Cohen, Harvard College

·      GuardianSat: Founded by Chris Rohe, Harvard Kennedy School

·      Inquisio: Founded by Joshua Penner, Harvard Extension School

·      Kedi Labs: Founded by Michelle Frye, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

·      PathCision: Founded by David Lee, Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

·      Platform: Founded by Adrian Washington, Harvard Business School

·      Sugarwork: Co-founded by Vanessa Liu, Harvard Radcliffe and Harvard Law School and Judith Williams, Harvard Radcliffe.

·      Vocadian: Co-founded by Amelia Eginton, Harvard Business School and Yujie Wang, Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

We extend our gratitude to the lead mentors, speakers, lead mentors, and judges, who lent their time, expertise, and support throughout the Accelerator program.

LEAD MENTORS Kwaku Abrokwah, Moshtaq Ahmed, Sunny Arora, Ilias Beshimov, Agnes Brichard, Fazilat Damani, Christian Farivar, Nuno Godinho, Kiran Govindaraju, Faizal Javer, Jon Langbert, Jorge Moshe Jimenez Montesinos, Zenghzheng (Nick) Pan, Philip Parks, Prad Parthiban, JJ Rohrer, Pedro Rubio, Amol Shah, Kirill Silkin, Greg Stone, Bob Shang You Tee, Tom Thompson, Katy Trost

GUEST SPEAKERS Matt Cameron, Kal Deutsch, Paul Doncaster, Gwen Edwards, Leah Edwards, Bruce Graham, Matt Hagen, Ari Horie, Kirin Kalia, Steve Payne, Bill Reichert, Greg Stone, Martin Tantow, Patti Tantow, Tom Thompson, Carol Tran, Rhea Wessel 

JUDGES Steve Adelman, Gwen Edwards, Gideon Marks, Anish Srivastava

Most importantly, a heartfelt ‘thank you’ goes to Bill Reichert and Pegasus Tech Ventures for partnering with us. Their commitment to advancing Harvard entrepreneurship and innovation ensures that promising alumni startups have the resources to succeed.

How to Vet Technology for Diversity

How to Vet Technology for Diversity

Angela wanted to use the new virtual try-on service to see what different lip shades look like on her skin. But when she opened it up, a message said: “no face detected.” Her friend, who’s white, could see the different products virtually applied to her skin. But Angela, a black woman, could not.

 

When facial recognition systems were being initially created, the grad students used pictures of classmates, predominantly white and Asian men. Unsurprisingly this technology works especially well for those groups. New technology tends to be tested by those who are most easily available to the creator, leaving room for potential shortcomings with other populations. 

 

HarvardAE and Pegasus Tech Ventures Announces the Inaugural Cohort

Harvard Alumni Entrepreneurs and Pegasus Tech Ventures are proud to announce the inaugural cohort of early-stage startups to participate in the Harvard Alumni Entrepreneurs Accelerator powered by Pegasus Tech Venture. The Harvard Alumni Entrepreneurs Accelerator is a partnership between Harvard Alumni Entrepreneurs and Pegasus Tech Ventures.

The 2022 cohort reflects the diversity and brilliance of Harvard alumni entrepreneurs around the world. The first cohort of 10 startups are from 5 schools and 7 countries and were selected from a pool of 139 applicants from 22 countries.

The 2022 Cohort represents a wide range of sectors, including Logistics & Transportation. FinTech, HealthTech, HealthCare, Manufacturing AI, Retail Apparel and Fashion, Sustainable Furniture, and Medical Wearables.

The Accelerator is committed to seeking diverse founders: 40% of our founders are women or identify as being from underserved communities.  

We’re thrilled to welcome these 10 promising teams to participate in our accelerator.

Adapdix 

Autonomo 

Coink

DeltaX

Hoek Home

INVERSA Leathers

NursIT Institute

Thermaband

VivaWell

Wala Digital Health 

We are excited to witness this group of incredible founders take their ventures to the next level.

About Harvard Alumni Entrepreneurs 

Harvard Alumni Entrepreneurs, Inc. (HarvardAE) is a volunteer-managed non-profit organization with 20 Chapters worldwide, connecting over 16,000 Harvard alumni, faculty, students, and friends from across the University and throughout the world. 

HarvardAE is dedicated to the advancement of entrepreneurship, promotion of innovation, and furthering the ideals of leadership and learning. Since our beginnings, HarvardAE has served as a meeting place for entrepreneurial alumni, students, faculty and staff from all of Harvard's schools. For more information, please check out www.harvardae.org

About Pegasus Tech Ventures

Pegasus Tech Ventures is a global venture capital firm based in Silicon Valley with over $1.7 Billion in assets under management. Pegasus offers intellectual and financial capital to emerging technology companies around the world. In addition to offering institutional investors a top-tier venture capital investment approach, Pegasus also offers a unique Venture Capital-as-a-Service (VCaaS) model for large, global corporations that wish to partner with cutting-edge technology startups. Some of the 35+ corporate partners that have partnered with Pegasus include ASUS, Aisin, SEGA, Sojitz, and NGK Spark Plugs. These corporations are able to have access to over 200 Pegasus portfolio companies such as SpaceX, Airbnb, SoFi, Doordash, 23andMe, Bird, Color, Carbon, and many more. For more information about Pegasus, please check outwww.pegasutechventures.com

Pegasus also founded and sponsors Startup World Cup, one of the biggest and richest startup competitions in the world. Startup World Cup extends to over 70 countries across six continents, with a Grand Finale in Silicon Valley featuring a $1 million investment prize. The goal of Startup World Cup is to support regional innovation ecosystems and connect them to Silicon Valley. For more information, please check out www.startupworldcup.io

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