Awards & Innovations

Ariel shot of UC Berkeley campus

The latest Fung Institute news, awards, and program innovations

The Berkeley MEng community makes amazing things happen — for Berkeley, at all levels of society, in technical, social, and economic innovations, worldwide. We celebrate our alumni network of engineering leaders that continue to push the edges of what’s possible.

Headshot of Alison Burklund Cofounder, Nanopath

Start Up

Nanopath

Recognition: Forbes 30 Under 30: Healthcare 2023
Alumni: Alison Burklund, BioE ’16
Start Up: Alison Burklund is the cofounder and CTO of Nanopath. Nanopath creates diagnostics that test pelvic and gynecologic infections during a single visit, so treatment can begin right away.

Read about Nanopath
The Snipfeed team

Start Up

Snipfeed

Recognition: Forbes 30 Under 30: Social Media 2022
Alumni: Pierre-Habte Nouvellon, IEOR ’18
Start Up: Snipfeed allows creators to quickly build a site where fans can book them for specific events or buy their merchandise; the influencers then add a URL link to their Snipfeed page to their social media profiles.

Read about Snipfeed
Po Jui Chiu

Start Up

BioInspira

Recognition: Forbes 30 under 30: Energy 2019
Alumni: Po-Jui (Ray) Chiu, BIOE ’14
Start Up: Ray developed a new bio-based sensor platform to detect chemicals in the atmosphere, a potential replacement for the slow, hand-held sensors.

Read about BioInspira
three men holding a stethoscope

Start Up

Eko Devices

Recognitions: Time’s 25 Best Inventions of 2015Forbes 30 under 30: Pharma & Healthcare 2015Youngest team to receive FDA clearance for a Class II medical deviceWorld Changing Ideas 2019 finalist
Alumni: Connor Landgraf BIOE ’14
Start Up: Eko combines the electronic stethoscope and EKG with powerful software. It is the first platform for mobile acoustic cardiac monitoring in clinic or remotely.

Read about Eko Devices
Han Jin and Adam Rowell posing together

Start Up

Lucid

Recognition: Forbes 30 under 30: Consumer Technology in 2018
Alumni: Han Jin IEOR ’12
Start Up: Lucid develops the next level of dual camera technology to enable VR and AR content creation in 3D through real-time/cloud image processing.

Read about Lucid
Skinner Cheng, Thibault Duchemin and Pieter Doevendans

Start Up

Ava (formerly Transcence)

Recognition: Inc.’s Top 50 Young Entrepreneurs to Watch in 2015Forbes 30 under 30: Consumer Technology 2017
Alumni: Thibault Duchemin IEOR ’14
Start Up: Ava makes conversations between deaf/hard-of-hearing and hearing people a seamless experience, through advanced speech and mobile technologies.

Read about Ava
Ankur Aggarwal, Hareesh Ganesan, Nick Valilis, Rahul Jain

Start Up

Fellow (formerly TowerView Health)

Recognition: Forbes 30 under 30: Healthcare in 2017
Start Up: 
Fellow is a smart pillbox and low-tech prescription management service.
Alumni: Ankur Aggarwal EECS ’12

Read about Fellow
Amanda Karen Brief holding her product MyFlow

Start Up

my.Flow Smart Tampon

Recognition: ​Winner of Live Sharks Tank Startups Showcase (January 2016), Tech.Co Startup of the Year Innovate! Semifinalist (September 2016​)
Alumni: Amanda Brief IEOR ’15
Start Up: my.Flow has created the world’s first tampon monitor (Patent Pending) to address the issues of period stigma, shame, anxiety, leakage, and risk of infection.

Read about my.Flow
the Berkeley Campanile against the San Francisco skyline

Start Up

Parade (Dray Technologies)

Recognition: Inc.’s Top 50 Young Entrepreneurs to Watch in 2015
Alumni: Anthony Sutardja EECS ’15
Start Up: Parade uses artificial Intelligence to extract business intelligence from transportation data, optimizing load fulfillment end-to-end.

Read about Parade
Two men inspecting another with a stethoscope

Capstone Project

Tabla

Recognition: Winner of Fast Company‘s 2017 Innovation by Design Awards.
Alumni: Chen Bao ME ’17 and Jorge Ruiz ME ’17
Capstone Project:
 Tabla is a low-cost, accurate device that uses sound waves to diagnose pneumonia.

Read about Tabla
Visualize project team posing in front of a board about their project

Competition

Visualize: Saving Lives with Training for Cervical Cancer Screening

Recognition: First place in the 2015 Big Ideas @ Berkeley Global Health category
Alumni: Abhimanyu RayME/Product Design ’15, Karan Patel ME/Product Design ’15
Capstone Project: Visualize is an organization dedicated to empowering and supporting midwives to screen for cervical cancer through thoughtful educational techniques.

Read about Visualize
A man pouring chemical into a tube

Media

Reduced energy consumption for the US military

Recognition: Featured in US News & World Report’s article “Do Good, Be in Demand as an Engineer” 
Alumni: 
William Hagen ME’ 12

Read more on US News

Competitions

Big Ideas at Berkeley

  • Benson Fan, Patrick Lyon, Ray Chiu, Yayun Chen, MEng ’14Glucose ENOSE developed a colorimetric sensor that could provide an inexpensive, non-invasive test for determining the level of glucose in the patient’s blood, providing a painless alternative to the finger stick testing method. First Place in Information Technology for Society.
  • Luciano Colos, MEng ’14 | InversionParaTodos.com.ar is a web based educational platform that will provide a set of tools that help individuals to manage debt, savings, public benefits, investments and other money related issues more effectively. Second Place in Information Technology for Society.
  • Abhimanyu Ray and Karan Patel, ME/Product Design ’15Visualize: Saving Lives with Training for Cervical Cancer Screening. Visualize is an organization dedicated to empowering and supporting midwives to screen for cervical cancer through thoughtful educational techniques. First Place in Global Health.
  • I-Chin Wu (BioE), Sandya Iyer (BioE), and Mingle Tong (ME), MEng ‘15 | Bacteriophage-based Generators for Portable Electronics designed and developed a bacteriophage-based piezoelectric generator, a potential simple and environmentally friendly solution to clean renewable energy. The generator converts daily human activities to electricity, deviating from battery power and reducing environmental burden. Honorable Mention.

Fellowships

CITRIS Technology for Social Good Graduate Fellow

Are you an MEng alumni with a recognition to share?

Email funginstutute@berkeley.edu