Sync Labs won the 2025 President’s Innovation Prize, awarded annually to teams of undergraduate seniors with innovative startup ideas that have the potential to make a positive, lasting difference in the world. The Sync Labs team, which consists of Penn Engineering students Melanie Herbert, Nami Lindquist, and Alexandra Popescu, is focused on improving the delivery of care to seniors. With support from their mentor Jeffrey Babin, PhD, Practice Professor at Penn Engineering and Associate Director of the Engineering Entrepreneurship Program, the team is developing a privacy-centric AI system to support eldercare by reducing staff burnout and addressing gaps in caregiving.
The Sync Labs team graduated from the Spring 2024 Penn I-Corps cohort, where customer discovery led them to pivot from developing an intelligent refrigerator to addressing critical challenges in eldercare. The team plans to use the Innovation Prize, which includes $100,000, a $50,000 living stipend per team member, and collaboration with a staff or faculty mentor, to support the further development and deployment of their technology. Read more here and here.