Sac State University-Wide Innovation Competition

The Sacramento State University-Wide Innovation Competition is an opportunity for student innovators and entrepreneurs to showcase their ideas, technologies, and/or businesses while receiving mentorship, and the opportunity to win prize money and experience personal development.

All majors are welcome!

Apply Today!

About the University-Wide Innovation Competition

If you are a student - innovator, researcher, or entrepreneur looking to, or already working on, building a venture or turning an idea into reality, the University-Wide Innovation Competition is for you. The pitch competition is open to all majors and provides innovative student ideas, technologies, and/or startups with the opportunity to compete for cash prizes. In addition, students can go on to experience other opportunities for undergraduate pitch events such as e-Fest.

Finalists will be chosen on the strength of their slide deck and answers to these questions:

• What problem are you working to address and who has this specific problem?
• What is your proposed solution to this problem?
• How do you plan on making this business idea sustainable (revenue streams, costs, etc.)?

Apply Here!

2025 Winners

1st Place Winner: Team Gulp
The team is developing an AI-powered AAC device to help Gestalt language processors communicate and learn how to structure sentences.

• Derian Godoy-Chavez
• Ben Duong
• Nicholas Eowa
• Long Nguyen
• Brayan Mejia Nunez
• Uhmang Vadhar

2nd Place Winner: Team Splash
The team is automating pool chemical testing, making pools easier and more enjoyable to own.

• Gabriel Sigala

3rd place winner: Team HeadShotX
The team is building the first smart headgear that monitors impact in real time and uses AI to alert fighters before they reach dangerous thresholds.

• Ricky Bailey
• Cody Kneale (not pictured)
• Andrew Paolo Solbjor

2024 Winners

1st Place Winner: Vael
Garrett Gillette, founder of Vael, a privacy-focused, estate settlement software solution for the digital age.

Second Place Winners: SafeGuard AI (now SentrySight)

Team Azuki‘s venture, SentrySight, is a solution to prevent school shootings with an AI prediction/monitoring system.

Fresh from winning the inaugural AI Hackathon. the newly-formed team represents ECS and includes:

• John Son Dong
• Huy Duy Dao
• Gavin Garcia
• Enrique De La Torre
• Ritchie Martinez

CSU Startup Launch Competition

Both teams went on to compete in the CSU Startup Launch Competition and won prizes there!

Students win BIG!