The Connecticut Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (CCEI) is proud to recognize the February 2026 cohort of Accelerate UConn Propelus — the university’s National Science Foundation (NSF) I-Corps program designed to help researchers explore the commercial potential of their innovations. Over the course of four intensive weeks, participants engaged in hands-on entrepreneurial training aimed at moving early-stage technologies beyond the lab and toward real-world impact.
The cohort launched with an in-person workshop before transitioning into a series of structured webinars covering key topics such as customer discovery, value proposition design, and identifying product-market fit. Throughout the program, each team conducted a minimum of 20 customer discovery interviews, speaking directly with potential users, stakeholders, and industry experts. These conversations help teams test their assumptions, refine their understanding of the problems they aim to solve, and determine whether their technologies have viable pathways to commercialization. Upon completing the program, participating teams received a $1,500 NSF stipend to support continued validation and next-step exploration for their innovations.
We’re continually inspired by the curiosity, dedication, and entrepreneurial mindset demonstrated by Propelus participants.
Special thanks go to our Propelus instructors — Michelle Cote, Leland Holcomb, Claire Zick, Clarke Lunara, and Scott Alpizar — whose deep experience within the NSF innovation ecosystem helped guide teams through the discovery process and challenge their thinking. Also, thank you to Mandy Major and Kim Conti for being pod mentors, and to Brianna Barrett and Allison Meyler for observing.
UConn’s participation in the NSF Innovation Corps (I-Corps™) Northeast Hub connects our researchers to a national network dedicated to transforming breakthrough discoveries into startup ventures and real-world solutions. Through this collaboration, the hub supports commercialization efforts across fields including biomedical innovation, sustainability, climate technologies, and advanced materials, while expanding opportunities for researchers from diverse institutions and disciplines.
Interested in participating in a future Propelus cohort? Learn more about upcoming program dates and eligibility by visiting ccei.uconn.edu/accelerate-uconn, or explore additional resources through the I-Corps Northeast Hub at icorpsnortheasthub.org.
For questions about Accelerate UConn Propelus, please contact Alycia Chrosniak at alycia.chrosniak@uconn.edu.
February Accelerate UConn Propelus
Wavelet
Jasmine Jiang, Maya Sari
A non-invasive, AI-powered fetal EEG to help prevent brain injuries at birth and improve outcomes for both mother and baby.
WellMe Health
Khushbu Dulani, Sophie Takmopoulos
A digital application that serves as an all-in-one women’s health hub, helping women make sense of their health by tracking symptoms, cycles, and lifestyle factors over time. It provides personalized insights, doctor-specific ready reports, digital resources, and condition-specific guidance to support women before, during, and after diagnosis, with a focus on PCOS, hyperthyroidism, hypothyroidism, and endometriosis. WellMe also includes a telehealth hub, connecting users to vetted health specialists and helping them navigate appointments, testing, and ongoing care.
SoleShift
Michael Flores, Isha Mendiratta, Aya Amoudi
An adjustable smart insole with AI-powered app.
Elysius Labs
Jeffrey Madden, Christy Lam
Developing a wearable sleep mask designed to actively stop nightmares and night terrors as they happen. While most sleep trackers simply provide a report of how you slept the night before, our device uses integrated sensors to monitor brain activity and physiological signals in real-time throughout the night. The mask's internal software is trained to recognize the specific biometric "signature" of a nightmare before the user experiences physical panic.
Elyton
Krish Bhuva, Colin Sheardwright, Jackson Conlon
Developing a compact, automated, non-contact metal finishing system that improves surface quality and edge conditions on metal parts without altering part geometry. The technology targets post-processing challenges in advanced manufacturing and metal additive manufacturing, where current finishing methods are often manual, contact-based, and inconsistent. The system is designed to access complex geometries, reduce operator dependency, and improve repeatability.
Taurus Meridian
Siddarth Pai, Deepthi Pai
A platform designed to help organizations gain visibility and control over software execution and automation happening on employee machines that currently falls outside traditional IT and security oversight. As AI tools and automation become more common, individuals and teams are increasingly running code, scripts, and tools locally in ways that are invisible to central systems. This creates operational risk, security exposure, and compliance challenges for enterprises. Taurus Meridian provides a simple, enterprise-friendly way to make this activity visible, auditable, and manageable.
OnePercent
Keerthana Vangury, Sathwik Bollepalli
Helping you take the smallest meaningful step each day. You start with tiny tasks, build momentum and unlock more only when you're ready. No pressure, no guilt. Just progress.
Ideatech
Salim Mirshahi, Monireh Mirshahi
An enhanced portable blood donor chair that integrates a lightweight, foldable, and ergonomically designed physical platform with an embedded AI application that collects selected patient-specific physiological and demographic data (e.g., vital signs, age, weight, prior donation history, and sensor-based indicators and etc.) to support real-time prediction of key blood test results prior to or during donation. This combined hardware-software solution addresses two major challenges faced by blood banks and mobile collection organizations: the logistical burden of transporting bulky equipment and the inefficiency caused by late-stage donor deferrals due to unfavorable blood test outcomes.
Core Finance
Vincent Kariuki, Venice Montanaro
A personal finance web application that helps individuals better understand, organize, and manage their money. The platform provides users with clear insights into their spending, savings, and investment habits through smart automation and visual analytics. It simplifies budgeting, goal tracking, and financial planning in one intuitive interface.
Curb Grubs
Raghu Chikkala, Rehaan Ahamed
A digital platform that integrates food truck discovery, ordering and food truck festival management using advanced solutions like AI and NFC tracking. Commercially, it operates with transaction fees from ordering and subscription fees from vendors and food truck festival organizers.
Alive Gaming Network
VJ Maury, Adam Sawkins
A platform where players enjoy streaming multiplayer video games in a new format that maximizes the number of players in each game — the first of its kind for mobile video gaming. This allows all players to both play and watch the action on one common screen. This will be for up to 100 players initially or more at home, at public locations such as a retail location and potentially cinemas where the stream can be connected. The mobile phones act as controllers for either the mobile or PC versions of the game.
BrightSide
Jonathan Orlando, Luis Sanchez, Mohamad Oufi
A smart mobile platform designed to bridge the persistent workforce gap in Connecticut by synchronizing job seekers with high-demand career pathways. We leverage advanced data-matching algorithms and human-computer interaction principles to create a centralized hub where individuals can discover employment opportunities specifically tailored to their existing credentials and local training programs. Unlike existing job boards, our platform ensures the coordination of real-time industry needs within healthcare, manufacturing, and technical services with the academic and vocational resources available to the workforce.
FlexiGrace
Arun Singh, Courtney Greenwood, Anne Harris
Technology that dissociates tissues into single cells gently to preserve the native biology.
Fitch Flamers
Alan Wiernasz, Dr Clifford Robbins, William McDermott, Nora Murphy
A fitch fuel catalyst — heterogeneous metallic alloy catalyst.
Marc-Antoni
Ricardo Duncanson, George Bollas
A 3DOM lithium-cell and partially superconducting motor/generator to be used for the powertrain for a hybrid hypercar. The 3DOM TNO lithium-ion cells will also be commercialized for motorsports (Formula 1), AI data center battery energy storage systems (BESS), and hybrid electric propulsion systems for regional aircrafts.