Honoring the Brightest Student Innovators of the Year
Celebrating Innovation, Passion, and Impact
From dozens of impressive ventures, these student-led teams stood out for their bold ideas, strategic thinking, and impact-driven execution. Selected by a panel of esteemed judges, the winners represent the future of entrepreneurship—where innovation meets purpose. Explore the standout teams who left a mark at the 2025 NextGen Entrepreneurs Pitch Competition.
Grand Champion
Team11 - Search-AI (sigma)
Search-AI (sigma) is the First Social Platform for Searching AI tools. Simplifying AI Discovery for Everyday Users.Resolving the Overwhelming AI Tools and Field Knowledge for General AI Users.
First-Runner Up
Team 6 -Roodle
Roodle Noodle House introduces a groundbreaking solution to the challenges faced by aspiring restaurant owners in today’s high-cost food industry. By utilizing fully automated noodle-making machines, we eliminate the need for extensive labor and reduce operational expenses, making restaurant ownership more accessible. Our innovative approach ensures high-quality, freshly made noodles in just 2 minutes, catering to both entrepreneurs seeking a hands-off investment and consumers desiring affordable, healthy meals. With scalability and automation at its core, Roodle is redefining the future of dining and business ownership.
Second-Runner Up
Team 4 - ChessMate
Chess Mate is a board-agnostic AI Chess Robotic Arm that uses camera-based piece recognition and a custom AI pipeline—combining Stockfish for baseline analysis with an LLM for in-depth style evaluation—to deliver a highly adaptive and personalized chess experience. Drived by a Raspberry Pi, Chess Mate moves the pieces on your existing board, supports multi-tier subscriptions for varying levels of AI sophistication, online matchmaking, and offers a dedicated Coaching Mode for educators—all while reducing screen dependency through physical, hands-on gameplay.
Most Innovative Idea
Team12 - Labro Inc
Labro Inc. is transforming laboratory automation with cutting-edge AI technology, empowering life sciences research. Our AI-powered cell counting device enhances experimental precision, reduces human error, and optimizes research efficiency. With 95%+ accuracy and 60% time savings demonstrated in pilot testing, our patented solution helps research institutions accelerate breakthroughs and drive scientific innovation.
Best Presentation
Team9 - Grow Tech 《VEGE HOME》
VEGE HOME is a smart, modular, and hydroponics planting system that brings nature into everyday life. With precise environmental control and remote management via the VEGE APP, anyone can effortlessly grow fresh, healthy plants at home. We inspire a new lifestyle—making planting easy, enjoyable, and sustainable. Let planting come into life.
Best Team
Team 5 - EduQuest
EduQuest is an AI-powered tool designed for both educators and students. It solves two major rising challenges in education—teacher burnout and student disengagement—by personalizing students’ curriculum, reducing teacher workload, and leveraging students’ interests and intrinsic motivation.
Entrepreneurial Spirit Award
Carbon Era
Carbon Era is a front-end service provider in carbon asset trading, bridging buyers and sellers with integrated market data, AI insights, and specialized securitization solutions. Operating through a lean structure of carbon finance experts and global partnerships, we are raising capital to expand platform capabilities and broaden our reach into emerging markets. With this strategic financing, we project significant revenue growth over the next three years with our present and new projects, solidifying our position as a leading player in the rapidly expanding carbon trading ecosystem.
Y-Safety
“Y” Safety? Because every woman deserves to feel safe! Y-Safety develops smart stickers to protect women from danger. Danger could be unpredictable, but protection shouldn’t be.
VORLD
“VORLD is an AI-driven vision system that integrates computer vision models and large language models, enabling intuitive, natural-language-based configuration. Built on our open-source ecosystem, it empowers developers and businesses to deploy and customize vision solutions effortlessly. With standardized APIs and smart scene adaptation, VORLD makes complex visual AI as simple as a conversation.”
Vicon AI-Enabled Intelligent Emergency Shower System
Vicon's intelligent sprinkling, greening, and fire protection system placed both inside and outside properties and community centers would provide comprehensive safety and environmental solutions for households, businesses, and factories. For homes, it offers automatic fire suppression, reducing property damage and injuries while also purifying air, suppressing dust, and irrigating plants.
Rhyfinity L.C.
Breaking through the limitations of traditional AI chatbots that only provide information, My Little Goal integrates AI-powered recommendations, goal tracking, social interaction, and a resource map to create a complete growth management loop. Users can set goals in areas such as academics, career, and personal interests, while AI helps dynamically optimize their plans and social features provide ongoing support. This innovative model of “AI Planning + Execution Support” fills a gap in the market and offers strong user stickiness and commercial potential.
_JPG.jpg)
Recap
Look Back at Past Events
Discover SparkHub's previous successful events that brought together young entrepreneurs, industry leaders, and enthusiasts to share knowledge, network, and inspire.
Recap
Held in Summer 2024 at the Hilton Hotel in Costa Mesa, CA. This event united 16 high school teams, showcasing groundbreaking ideas and entrepreneurial talent. The competition provides a platform for young innovators to pitch their business ideas, receive expert mentorship, and compete for awards and seed funding.
Highlights
The 2024 Youth Entrepreneur Fair, led by Sandbox Synergy and in partnership with SparkHub, is an inspiring event led by SparkHub Co-founder Avril Zhang. The Youth Entrepreneur Fair is a large-scale fair that hosts student-led small businesses by giving them a booth and a public platform to share and grow their passion for entrepreneurship.
