Y Combinator, known for launching over 5,000 startups including Airbnb, Coinbase, DoorDash, Dropbox, and Zapier, is coming to Georgia Tech’s campus on Tuesday, Nov. 12, at 5 p.m. in the John Lewis Student Center’s Walter G. Ehmer Theater for a panel event hosted by CREATE-X. The panel will feature Y Combinator Group Partner Brad Flora and the founders of Greptile, all Georgia Tech alumni, who will discuss their experiences with the startup accelerator. 

Since tickets are limited, students are encouraged to RSVP for Y Combinator @ Georgia Tech. As a part of the event, students can apply for Office Hours With Flora, which will be held earlier in the day, by answering optional questions in the RSVP form. Y Combinator will notify selected students. The sessions enable students to discuss side projects or startups, startup idea development, finding co-founders, and monetizing products. Confirmed RSVPs are required to attend the event and office hours. 

Y Combinator offers an intensive, three-month program designed to help startups succeed. It provides startups with seed funding, mentorship, and access to a network of investors, industry experts, and alumni.

In 2022, Daksh Gupta and SooHoon Choi participated in CREATE-X Startup Launch and developed Tabnam, which became Greptile after several iterations. Initially, the startup was promoted as an AI shopping assistant that scrapes the internet to tell users what people think about their product. 

In 2023, after they graduated from Georgia Tech, Choi, Gupta, and Vaishant Kameswaran launched the latest version of the startup. Now the AI platform focuses on entire codebases and allows users to query via an API. Through the platform, users chat with their codebases, generate descriptions for tickets, automate PR reviews, and build custom internal tools and automations on top of the API. Over 800 software teams, including Wombo, Metamask, Warp, Exa AI, Bland, and Leya, use Greptile. In June, it had a $4 million seed round. Greptile was part of Y Combinator’s Winter 2024 cohort. 

For those inspired by Greptile’s success and interested in launching their own startup, CREATE-X is currently accepting applications for Summer 2025 Startup Launch. The priority deadline is Sunday, Nov. 17. Early applicants have a higher chance of acceptance, the opportunity for more feedback, and more opportunities to apply if one idea isn’t accepted.

Startup Launch provides mentorship, $5,000 in optional funding, and $150,000 in services to help Georgia Tech students, alumni, faculty, and researchers launch businesses over 12 weeks in the summer. Teams can be interdisciplinary, made up of co-founders even outside of Georgia Tech, and solopreneurs. CREATE-X, as a whole, has had more than 34,000 participants, launched 560 startups, and has generated a total startup portfolio valuation exceeding $2 billion.

Benjamin Freeman has been named a 2024 Packard Fellow for groundbreaking research in climate change and bird ecology. Freeman, an assistant professor in the School of Biological Sciences, will receive $875,000 to fund his work.

“From all of us in Biological Sciences, we’re thrilled to see Ben Freeman named a Packard Fellow,” says School Chair Jeffrey (Todd) Streelman. “Ben’s research is important, compelling, and creative — a triple-threat combination that justifies this recognition.”

Awarded annually to only 20 individuals by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Packard Fellows are known for pursuing cutting-edge research, never-before-done projects, and ambitious goals. 

“These scientists and engineers are the architects of tomorrow, leading innovation with bold ideas and unyielding determination,” shares Nancy Lindborg, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Packard Foundation. “Their work today will be the foundation for the breakthroughs of the future, inspiring the next wave of discovery and invention.” 

“I'm flabbergasted to receive this prestigious award,” says Freeman. “Packard support will be transformative. It will give me the freedom to do the sorts of risky projects that I've dreamed about, and will support the intense fieldwork that I'm convinced is necessary to understand big questions in climate change ecology.”

The Packard funding will support Freemans most ambitious project to date: developing “Tech Mountain” in the tropics, a long-term field project focused on surveying thousands of individual birds. From mountain slope to summit, he will track their motions, their nests and predators, where they live, eat, move, and die — and how this changes as temperatures warm.

The pioneer study will shape a window into how birds and other organisms are responding to our changing climate, while developing technology and methodology that could revolutionize the fields of ecology and biology.

The escalator to extinction

Freeman’s previous research has shown that, in general, birds are moving to higher elevations as our climate changes. 

“I found that as it's gotten warmer in the tropics, it's set in motion what I call an escalator to extinction,” he explains. “Birds are living at higher and higher elevations, and those that were common on a mountain top when I was a toddler in Peru are now gone from that mountain.”

While this previous research has shown that tropical birds are on this escalator, it hasn’t been possible to determine the specifics: which birds might be most vulnerable and what the key stressors are.

Freeman explains that “Tech Mountain” will be a first-of-its-kind field site, equipped with innovative sensors and trackers — think cameras placed on nets, recording equipment, climatic sensors, and small individual trackers on each bird.

“I want to figure out what drives their birth rates, where they're dying, and where they're moving during the course of their life,” he shares. “That will help us unravel how this escalator to extinction works.”

Building ‘Tech Mountain’

Several thousand meters tall, encompassing lowland rainforest, foothill rainforest, and cloud forest, Freeman’s field site will feature dense vegetation, steep grades, and encompass several different climatic zones — each with unique species.

Along its slopes, Freeman’s team will find, catch, mark, and follow the lives of thousands of individual birds across hundreds of species — for a minimum of five years, but potentially for decades. It’s never been done before.

Currently, most GPS trackers are too large for small birds, and smaller trackers capture limited information. Additionally, these smaller trackers cannot wirelessly transfer data — in order to download and access the data, each bird must be recaptured.

“The conditions are tough. It’s rugged. It’s humid. It’s cloudy and wet. We’ll need to put resources into developing technology that fits our needs, and experiment with different ways of tracking individuals in these difficult conditions,” Freeman says.

Freeman will also leverage eBird, an online hub where community scientists can upload their observations. “Millions upon millions of observations are uploaded by community scientists, citizen scientists, birders — people,” he adds. “And using this data, we can estimate the vulnerability of mountain bird species — which species seem to be shrinking their ranges and declining in abundance.”

This builds on Freeman’s current work creating the Mountain Bird Network, which supports community scientists in conducting bird surveys on their local mountains.

Georgia Tech and global connections

Freeman’s tools and methodologies could revolutionize fieldwork for ecologists and biologists, opening the door for rigorous new field studies.

It will also provide opportunities to deepen collaborations abroad. “I'm planning on working closely with Dr. Elisa Bonaccorso's lab at the University of San Francisco, Quito (USFQ Ecuador),” Freeman says, “and I’m looking forward to that collaboration. The Packard funding will also support work in Ecuador conducted by an Ecuadorian graduate student who is studying at Georgia Tech.”

Throughout the research, students will be at the heart of the projects. “I take mentoring scientists very seriously,” Freeman shares. “Undergraduates will have the opportunity to get involved on the biology side of this research, the computational side, and on the engineering side of the research. They’ll even help develop new tracking technologies.

The Packard Fellowship will not only support my research — but help me provide these opportunities in the coming years to Georgia Tech’s future scientists.” 

The Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines (IRIM) launched a new initiatives program, starting with several winning proposals, with corresponding initiative leads that will broaden the scope of IRIM’s research beyond its traditional core strengths. A major goal is to stimulate collaboration across areas not typically considered as technical robotics, such as policy, education, and the humanities, as well as open new inter-university and inter-agency collaboration routes. In addition to guiding their specific initiatives, these leads will serve as an informal internal advisory body for IRIM. Initiative leads will be announced annually, with existing initiative leaders considered for renewal based on their progress in achieving community building and research goals. We hope that initiative leads will act as the “faculty face” of IRIM and communicate IRIM’s vision and activities to audiences both within and outside of Georgia Tech.

Meet 2024 IRIM Initiative Leads

 

Stephen Balakirsky; Regents' Researcher, Georgia Tech Research Institute & Panagiotis Tsiotras; David & Andrew Lewis Endowed Chair, Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering | Proximity Operations for Autonomous Servicing

Why It Matters: Proximity operations in space refer to the intricate and precise maneuvers and activities that spacecraft or satellites perform when they are in close proximity to each other, such as docking, rendezvous, or station-keeping. These operations are essential for a variety of space missions, including crewed spaceflights, satellite servicing, space exploration, and maintaining satellite constellations. While this is a very broad field, this initiative will concentrate on robotic servicing and associated challenges. In this context, robotic servicing is composed of proximity operations that are used for servicing and repairing satellites in space. In robotic servicing, robotic arms and tools perform maintenance tasks such as refueling, replacing components, or providing operation enhancements to extend a satellite's operational life or increase a satellite’s capabilities.

Our Approach: By forming an initiative in this important area, IRIM will open opportunities within the rapidly evolving space community. This will allow us to create proposals for organizations ranging from NASA and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force. This will also position us to become national leaders in this area. While several universities have a robust robotics program and quite a few have a strong space engineering program, there are only a handful of academic units with the breadth of expertise to tackle this problem. Also, even fewer universities have the benefit of an experienced applied research partner, such as the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), to undertake large-scale demonstrations. Georgia Tech, having world-renowned programs in aerospace engineering and robotics, is uniquely positioned to be a leader in this field. In addition, creating a workshop in proximity operations for autonomous servicing will allow the GTRI and Georgia Tech space robotics communities to come together and better understand strengths and opportunities for improvement in our abilities.

Matthew Gombolay; Assistant Professor, Interactive Computing | Human-Robot Society in 2125: IRIM Leading the Way

Why It Matters: The coming robot “apocalypse” and foundation models captured the zeitgeist in 2023 with “ChatGPT” becoming a topic at the dinner table and the probability occurrence of various scenarios of AI driven technological doom being a hotly debated topic on social media. Futuristic visions of ubiquitous embodied Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotics have become tangible. The proliferation and effectiveness of first-person view drones in the Russo-Ukrainian War, autonomous taxi services along with their failures, and inexpensive robots (e.g., Tesla’s Optimus and Unitree’s G1) have made it seem like children alive today may have robots embedded in their everyday lives. Yet, there is a lack of trust in the public leadership bringing us into this future to ensure that robots are developed and deployed with beneficence.

Our Approach: This proposal seeks to assemble a team of bright, savvy operators across academia, government, media, nonprofits, industry, and community stakeholders to develop a roadmap for how we can be the most trusted voice to guide the public in the next 100 years of innovation in robotics here at the IRIM. We propose to carry out specific activities that include conducting the activities necessary to develop a roadmap about Robots in 2125: Altruistic and Integrated Human-Robot Society. We also aim to build partnerships to promulgate these outcomes across Georgia Tech’s campus and internationally.

Gregory Sawicki; Joseph Anderer Faculty Fellow, School of Mechanical Engineering & Aaron Young; Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering | Wearable Robotic Augmentation for Human Resilience 

Why It Matters: The field of robotics continues to evolve beyond rigid, precision-controlled machines for amplifying production on manufacturing assembly lines toward soft, wearable systems that can mediate the interface between human users and their natural and built environments. Recent advances in materials science have made it possible to construct flexible garments with embedded sensors and actuators (e.g., exosuits). In parallel, computers continue to get smaller and more powerful, and state-of-the art machine learning algorithms can extract useful information from more extensive volumes of input data in real time. Now is the time to embed lean, powerful, sensorimotor elements alongside high-speed and efficient data processing systems in a continuous wearable device.

Our Approach: The mission of the Wearable Robotic Augmentation for Human Resilience (WeRoAHR) initiative is to merge modern advances in sensing, actuation, and computing technology to imagine and create adaptive, wearable augmentation technology that can improve human resilience and longevity across the physiological spectrum — from behavioral to cellular scales. The near-term effort (~2-3 years) will draw on Georgia Tech’s existing ecosystem of basic scientists and engineers to develop WeRoAHR systems that will focus on key targets of opportunity to increase human resilience (e.g., improved balance, dexterity, and stamina). These initial efforts will establish seeds for growth intended to help launch larger-scale, center-level efforts (>5 years).

Panagiotis Tsiotras; David & Andrew Lewis Endowed Chair, Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering & Sam Coogan; Demetrius T. Paris Junior Professor, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering | Initiative on Reliable, Safe, and Secure Autonomous Robotics 

Why It Matters: The design and operation of reliable systems is primarily an integration issue that involves not only each component (software, hardware) being safe and reliable but also the whole system being reliable (including the human operator). The necessity for reliable autonomous systems (including AI agents) is more pronounced for “safety-critical” applications, where the result of a wrong decision can be catastrophic. This is quite a different landscape from many other autonomous decision systems (e.g., recommender systems) where a wrong or imprecise decision is inconsequential.

Our Approach: This new initiative will investigate the development of protocols, techniques, methodologies, theories, and practices for designing, building, and operating safe and reliable AI and autonomous engineering systems and contribute toward promoting a culture of safety and accountability grounded in rigorous objective metrics and methodologies for AI/autonomous and intelligent machines designers and operators, to allow the widespread adoption of such systems in safety-critical areas with confidence. The proposed new initiative aims to establish Tech as the leader in the design of autonomous, reliable engineering robotic systems and investigate the opportunity for a federally funded or industry-funded research center (National Science Foundation (NSF) Science and Technology Centers/Engineering Research Centers) in this area.

Colin Usher; Robotics Systems and Technology Branch Head, GTRI | Opportunities for Agricultural Robotics and New Collaborations

Why It Matters: The concepts for how robotics might be incorporated more broadly in agriculture vary widely, ranging from large-scale systems to teams of small systems operating in farms, enabling new possibilities. In addition, there are several application areas in agriculture, ranging from planting, weeding, crop scouting, and general growing through harvesting. Georgia Tech is not a land-grant university, making our ability to capture some of the opportunities in agricultural research more challenging. By partnering with a land-grant university such as the University of Georgia (UGA), we can leverage this relationship to go after these opportunities that, historically, were not available.

Our Approach: We plan to build collaborations first by leveraging relationships we have already formed within GTRI, Georgia Tech, and UGA. We will achieve this through a significant level of networking, supported by workshops and/or seminars with which to recruit faculty and form a roadmap for research within the respective universities. Our goal is to identify and pursue multiple opportunities for robotics-related research in both row-crop and animal-based agriculture. We believe that we have a strong opportunity, starting with formalizing a program with the partners we have worked with before, with the potential to improve and grow the research area by incorporating new faculty and staff with a unified vision of ubiquitous robotics systems in agriculture. We plan to achieve this through scheduled visits with interested faculty, attendance at relevant conferences, and ultimately hosting a workshop to formalize and define a research roadmap.

Ye Zhao; Assistant Professor, School of Mechanical Engineering | Safe, Social, & Scalable Human-Robot Teaming: Interaction, Synergy, & Augmentation

Why It Matters: Collaborative robots in unstructured environments such as construction and warehouse sites show great promise in working with humans on repetitive and dangerous tasks to improve efficiency and productivity. However, pre-programmed and nonflexible interaction behaviors of existing robots lower the naturalness and flexibility of the collaboration process. Therefore, it is crucial to improve physical interaction behaviors of the collaborative human-robot teaming.

Our Approach: This proposal will advance the understanding of the bi-directional influence and interaction of human-robot teaming for complex physical activities in dynamic environments by developing new methods to predict worker intention via multi-modal wearable sensing, reasoning about complex human-robot-workspace interaction, and adaptively planning the robot’s motion considering both human teaming dynamics and physiological and cognitive states. More importantly, our team plans to prioritize efforts to (i) broaden the scope of IRIM’s autonomy research by incorporating psychology, cognitive, and manufacturing research not typically considered as technical robotics research areas; (ii) initiate new IRIM education, training, and outreach programs through collaboration with team members from various Georgia Tech educational and outreach programs (including Project ENGAGES, VIP, and CEISMC) as well as the AUCC (World’s largest consortia of African American private institutions of higher education) which comprises Clark Atlanta University, Morehouse College, & Spelman College; and (iii) aim for large governmental grants such as DOD MURI, NSF NRT, and NSF Future of Work programs.

-Christa M. Ernst

CREATE-X Capstone Design offers students a unique opportunity to blend their technical skills with entrepreneurial ambitions. In this interdisciplinary program, teams of students identify real-world problems and develop innovative solutions through customer discovery and hands-on experience. Below we spotlight Team Sustain, a group of students who participated in the Spring 2024 Capstone Expo. Their project focused on bringing convenience to home-cooked meals, showcasing the practical application of their engineering and entrepreneurial skills. Read on to learn about their journey, their challenges, and how you can get involved in CREATE-X Capstone Design.

Team Sustain

Sustain offers a way to crowdsource meals and provide home cooks with a cash incentive. The system includes software for ordering, reviewing, and collecting data and hardware for meal exchange.

Nirmal Karthik, electrical and computer engineering

Soughtout Olasupo-Ojo, computer science

Nathan Kashani, mechanical engineering

Meghan Janicki, electrical and computer engineering

Joseph Nehme-Haily, mechanical engineering

John Mark Page, electrical engineering

Why did you all choose this project?

“One of the main things CREATE-X Capstone encourages us to do is customer discovery. Through our discussions, we realized that many people enjoy home-cooked meals but find them inconvenient to prepare. While most things in life are just a click away, home-cooked meals still require a personal touch. CREATE-X challenged us to find a problem and create a solution, so we focused on making home-cooked meals more convenient,” Page said.

Why CREATE-X Capstone?

“After graduation, I wanted to try my hand at entrepreneurship later. I thought CREATE-X was a good way for me to try and learn entrepreneurship skills: how to run a business, what it looks like, the timeline, and so on. Either way, if it went well or badly, I could say with my heart that I have an idea of how to do entrepreneurship,” Olasupo-Ojo said.

“You can go into a big city like Atlanta and actually feel like you can do something to help people. It is a great benefit, as opposed to being in the technical weeds of an engineering project. Mixing them together has been a great experience,” Janicki said.

“CREATE-X empowers students to think independently and explore projects they’re passionate about. We get to drive our projects and businesses, learning skills firsthand rather than just in theory,” Kashani said.

What was your biggest struggle?

“As engineers, we’re classically, especially in school, already given the problem. So, the challenge was figuring out what the problem was, and if our solution really solves the root cause of the problem. We figured out how to find the problem,” Page said.

“Figuring out the idea was our biggest struggle. We delved into markets to find opportunities and ways to help people,” Kashani said.

What has been your favorite part of this experience?

“The team. Make sure you surround yourself with good people, and I think each of us has done that. That’s what I’m proudest about — our team,” Page said.

What advice would you give to someone considering entrepreneurship?

“Develop the skill sets to see problems and be able to think about them. At the beginning of the semester, we were thinking about solar design and building solar design for farms, and now we are in a completely different space. But we’re still applying the same skills and building something up from it that matters. The most important skill is adaptability,” Janicki said.

“Be ready to make mistakes. You won’t get it right the first, second, or even third time. Customer discovery is a continuous process — don’t let setbacks discourage you,” Olasupo-Ojo said.

“Don’t be afraid to get started. If you’re feeling nervous or unsure, there’s only one way to find out, so I’d say go full force into it,” Kashani said.

CREATE-X Capstone Design is open to senior undergraduate students in mechanical engineering, electrical and computer engineering, industrial and systems engineering, and computer science. Course registration is available for the fall and spring semesters, and the current sections are ME4723-X/X01, CS4723-X/X01, ECE4853 X/LX, BME4723-X/X01, and ISYE4106. 

CREATE-X also offers other programs like Startup Lab and Idea to Prototype, providing students with a foundational entrepreneurial education. For those interested in launching their own ventures, CREATE-X’s 12-week summer accelerator, Startup Launch, offers mentorship, $5,000 in seed funding, and $150,000 of in-kind services. The priority deadline for the accelerator is Nov. 17. Apply for Startup Launch to maximize your chances of acceptance and receive early feedback.

Making Sustain: The Gallery

 

 

Kicking off a new decade of startup production at Georgia Tech, CREATE-X hosted its 11th Demo Day, showcasing 100 startups created by Georgia Tech students, faculty, researchers, and alumni over 12 weeks this summer. More than 1,500 attendees, including Georgia government and business leaders, viewed new solutions ranging from fashion to healthcare in a bustling Exhibition Hall on Aug. 29.

The event traditionally begins shortly after the semester starts, giving the entrepreneurially curious a preview of what’s to come if they join the program’s accelerator during the next application cycle.

Demo Day is the culmination of the 12-week summer accelerator, Startup Launch, where founders receive mentorship, $5,000 in optional funding, and $150,000 in services to help build their businesses. Teams can be interdisciplinary, made up of co-founders even outside of Georgia Tech, and solopreneurs, ready to solve real-world problems.

Each year, Startup Launch has grown, from an initial cohort of eight startups to over 100 this year. The Office of Commercialization, the home of CREATE-X, plans to keep expanding opportunities for the Georgia Tech community to grow their entrepreneurial skills.

Counting courses, events, programming, and partnerships, CREATE-X has had more than 32,000 participants. The ultimate goal and mission of the program is to instill entrepreneurial confidence in all Tech students. Rahul Saxena, director of the program, spoke about how far the Institute has come in the last decade. 

“I’ve been plugged into Georgia Tech for over 10 years. In the past, when you said Georgia Tech and entrepreneurship in the same sentence, they’d laugh, believe it or not,” he said. “Fast-forward, we’re one of the top entrepreneurial schools in the country. Our first four cohorts value over $100 million, with one of them being a unicorn, and our last four cohorts are well on their way. We want our students to have as many shots at gold as possible before they graduate. And even if they decide on a traditional career pathway, we believe they’ll be ahead with this entrepreneurial mindset, which is something lacking in corporate.”

This year, CREATE-X reached over 560 startup teams launched. Founders represented 38 academic majors, and their total startup portfolio valuation exceeds $2 billion. 

CREATE-X opened its Startup Launch application for its next cohort on Aug. 30. For those interested, the priority deadline is Nov. 17. Early applicants have a higher chance at acceptance and the opportunity for more feedback. So, send in your applications to Startup Launch and become the next founder at Georgia Tech.

Missed out on Demo Day? Check out the CREATE-X Flickr page to see photos from the event and the Demo Day page to see other teams. For more opportunities to engage, visit the CREATE-X Engage page for upcoming events. 

Spotlight on Startups

Some of the standout startups from this year’s Demo Day include:

The Cloud Hub, a key initiative of the Institute for Data Engineering and Science (IDEaS) at Georgia Tech, recently concluded a successful Call for Proposals focused on advancing the field of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI). This initiative, made possible by a generous gift funding from Microsoft, aims to push the boundaries of GenAI research by supporting projects that explore both foundational aspects and innovative applications of this cutting-edge technology.

Call for Proposals: A Gateway to Innovation

Launched in early 2024, the Call for Proposals invited researchers from across Georgia Tech to submit their innovative ideas on GenAI. The scope was broad, encouraging proposals that spanned foundational research, system advancements, and novel applications in various disciplines, including arts, sciences, business, and engineering. A special emphasis was placed on projects that addressed responsible and ethical AI use.

The response from the Georgia Tech research community was overwhelming, with 76 proposals submitted by teams eager to explore this transformative technology. After a rigorous selection process, eight projects were selected for support. Each awarded team will also benefit from access to Microsoft’s Azure cloud resources..

Recognizing Microsoft’s Generous Contribution

This successful initiative was made possible through the generous support of Microsoft, whose contribution of research resources has empowered Georgia Tech researchers to explore new frontiers in GenAI. By providing access to Azure’s advanced tools and services, Microsoft has played a pivotal role in accelerating GenAI research at Georgia Tech, enabling researchers to tackle some of the most pressing challenges and opportunities in this rapidly evolving field.

Looking Ahead: Pioneering the Future of GenAI

The awarded projects, set to commence in Fall 2024, represent a diverse array of research directions, from improving the capabilities of large language models to innovative applications in data management and interdisciplinary collaborations. These projects are expected to make significant contributions to the body of knowledge in GenAI and are poised to have a lasting impact on the industry and beyond.

IDEaS and the Cloud Hub are committed to supporting these teams as they embark on their research journeys. The outcomes of these projects will be shared through publications and highlighted on the Cloud Hub web portal, ensuring visibility for the groundbreaking work enabled by this initiative.

Congratulations to the Fall 2024 Winners

• Annalisa Bracco | EAS "Modeling the Dispersal and Connectivity of Marine Larvae with GenAI Agents" [proposal co-funded with support from the Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems]
• Yunan Luo | CSE “Designing New and Diverse Proteins with Generative AI”
• Kartik Goyal | IC “Generative AI for Greco-Roman Architectural Reconstruction: From Partial Unstructured Archaeological Descriptions to Structured Architectural Plans”
• Victor Fung | CSE “Intelligent LLM Agents for Materials Design and Automated Experimentation”
• Noura Howell | LMC “Applying Generative AI for STEM Education: Supporting AI literacy and community engagement with marginalized youth”
• Neha Kumar | IC “Towards Responsible Integration of Generative AI in Creative Game Development”
• Maureen Linden | Design “Best Practices in Generative AI Used in the Creation of Accessible Alternative Formats for People with Disabilities”
• Surya Kalidindi | ME & MSE “Accelerating Materials Development Through Generative AI Based Dimensionality Expansion Techniques”
• Tuo Zhao | ISyE “Adaptive and Robust Alignment of LLMs with Complex Rewards”

 

Georgia Tech researcher W. Hong Yeo has been awarded a $3 million grant to help develop a new generation of engineers and scientists in the field of sustainable medical devices. 

“The workforce that will emerge from this program will tackle a global challenge through sustainable innovations in device design and manufacturing,” said Yeo, Woodruff Faculty Fellow and associate professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University.

The funding, from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Training (NRT) program, will address the environmental impacts resulting from the mass production of medical devices, including the increase in material waste and greenhouse gas emissions.

Under Yeo’s leadership, the Georgia Tech team comprises multidisciplinary faculty: Andrés García (bioengineering), HyunJoo Oh (industrial design and interactive computing), Lewis Wheaton (biology), and Josiah Hester (sustainable computing). Together, they’ll train 100 graduate students, including 25 NSF-funded trainees, who will develop reuseable, reliable medical devices for a range of uses. 

“We plan to educate students on how to develop medical devices using biocompatible and biodegradable materials and green manufacturing processes using low-cost printing technologies,” said Yeo. “These wearable and implantable devices will enhance disease diagnosis, therapeutics, rehabilitation, and health monitoring.”

Students in the program will be challenged by a comprehensive, multidisciplinary curriculum, with deep dives into bioengineering, public policy, physiology, industrial design, interactive computing, and medicine. And they’ll get real-world experience through collaborations with clinicians and medical product developers, working to create devices that meet the needs of patients and care providers.

The Georgia Tech NRT program aims to attract students from various backgrounds, fostering a diverse, inclusive environment in the classroom — and ultimately in the workforce.

The program will also introduce a new Ph.D. concentration in smart medical devices as part of Georgia Tech's bioengineering program, and a new M.S. program in the sustainable development of medical devices. Yeo also envisions an academic impact that extends beyond the Tech campus.

“Collectively, this NRT program's curriculum, combining methods from multiple domains, will help establish best practices in many higher education institutions for developing reliable and personalized medical devices for healthcare,” he said. “We’d like to broaden students' perspectives, move past the current technology-first mindset, and reflect the needs of patients and healthcare providers through sustainable technological solutions.” 

On Aug. 29 in the Exhibition Hall from 5 to 7p.m, CREATE-X will celebrate its 10th year of supporting entrepreneurship at Georgia Tech by introducing its next cohort of startup founders at Demo Day. This free event, attracting more than 1,500 people annually, allows the public to explore products from over 100 newly minted startups, ranging from consumer apps to deep tech. It also provides a chance to engage with more than 250 founders thanks to its no-pitch format.

Since its inception in 2014, CREATE-X has worked to infuse a spirit of entrepreneurship at Georgia Tech. From supporting eight teams in its inaugural cohort, the program has grown to support the launch of over 100 startups this summer, bringing the total to 560 startup teams boasting a total portfolio valuation of over $2 billion. In the last year, the program has expanded internationally and looks to continue building opportunities for its students. 

“Our mission is to instill entrepreneurial confidence. We believe that entrepreneurship is a life skill,” says Rahul Saxena, CREATE-X director. “Georgia Tech students are capable of creating startups. We’re just giving them the tools and resources to do it. We want every Tech student to have this advantage when starting their business.”

At the kickoff for Startup Launch, the program’s summer startup accelerator, CREATE-X co-founder Chris Klaus spoke on the landscape of startups. “The secret sauce for unicorns is colleges. The number of unicorns is increasing, and I expect that trend to continue. This is the perfect place to build a startup,” he said. 

Startup Launch has concluded for the summer, and the founders are preparing to showcase their solutions at Demo Day.

Register Now

“We invite you to become part of shaping what comes next. Support these founders as they creatively solve real-world issues. See future industry leaders be born. Join us for the culmination of these founders’ hard work, passion, and ingenuity at Demo Day,” Rahul said. 

Demo Day 2024 registration is open. Tickets are free but limited. Don’t miss this chance to witness the future of innovation and entrepreneurship. For more information, visit the CREATE-X website.