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Innovation

Roughly 2,400 children in the United States are injured by electric shocks from wall outlets each year, and tripping over electrical cords is another hazard, especially for older adults. To help eliminate these risks, Chirag Goel ’21 and his team at Tego created a magnetic wall outlet that can help prevent injuries and hazards while improving wall outlet accessibility.

Explore the outlet’s features

The illustration shows a close-up of the Tego wall adapter components and how the adapter works. Additional elements in the illustration show a young child looking at a wall outlet. A vacuum cleaner is plugged into the outlet via a Tego outlet adapter. A man is running the vacuum. On the other side of a wall, a woman in a wheelchair is using a Tego adapter to plug in and turn on a light. She is holding a book.
Gannon Schram, an economics major at Northwestern, and his friend Shrikar Lekkala co-founded MetaFrazo, a video-dubbing service that uses artificial intelligence to translate educational videos with both voice and lip synchronization.

See how it works

Gannon Shram poses with his arms folded in The Garage on Northwestern’s campus
The Farley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation has launched a new course, Innovate for Climate, which encourages students to engage in climate-conscious problem-solving and business ventures.

Read about the course

Ben Szczygiel holds a large yellow buoy fitted with solar panels on its side while Sydney Williams observes. There is a waterway in the background, with a truck and boat parked nearby. Szczygiel is wearing a red long sleeve shirt, blue baseball cap and sunglasses, and Williams is wearing a lavender sweatshirt.
Manufacturing and design engineering majors Gass Iyacu ’24 and Emma Jackson ’24 teamed up with classmates Pratham Bansal ’24, Alicia Cabrera ’24 and Kevin Kaspar ’24 to invent an expandable bike helmet that accommodates thick, curly and voluminous hair while prioritizing safety and ventilation.

See how it works

An illustration depicts a pair of hands holding a purple bike helmet, with two arrows pointing right and left to indicate the helmet expansion mechanism. The illustration also shows a series of images: a woman holding an orange compression accessory, securing it on her head to compress her hair, then fastening the purple helmet over her head and riding a bicycle.
Ruchi Gupta is co-founder of Yobee, a startup that makes an all-natural, topical scalp treatment clinically proven to revitalize the skin’s microbiome and reduce flakiness, itching and redness. In spring 2023 Gupta was one of three women chosen to be part of the inaugural class of FoundHer Fellows, a program supporting women faculty at Northwestern who are first-time founders of entrepreneurial ventures.

Watch our video with Gupta

Portrait of Dr. Ruchi Gupta
Suyash Mohan is co-founder of Breer, a Hong Kong–based startup that upcycles unsold bread from local bakeries into craft beer.

Read the story

Gif of an illustration of a beer bottle with little bread slice dominoes falling inside the bottle.
Blair Matthews ’22 JD and Giuliana Zaccardelli ’22 MD, MBA are co-founders of Zuri Fertility, an app that serves as a personalized digital fertility clinic, with educational resources, a menstrual and ovulation tracker, access to at-home fertility testing and referrals for specialized treatment options at nearby brick-and-mortar fertility clinics.

Learn more

Giuliana Zaccardelli and Blair Matthews sit on steps next to each other smiling for a photo, both are wearing "Zuri" shirts.
A common pet peeve for parents became the subject of four alums’ manufacturing and design engineering capstone project. Joanne Park ’23, Callista Sukohardjo ’23, Ben Miller ’23 and Sarah John ’23 surveyed friends and family about everyday annoyances, gathering ideas for an invention.

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An illustration shows the expandable boot, with close ups of various features.
Parkinson’s disease often causes hand tremors and muscle rigidity, making it difficult to write by hand. After her grandpa was diagnosed with the disease and could no longer write, journalism major Izzy Mokotoff teamed up with biomedical engineering major Alexis Chan to develop SteadyScrib, a special pen and clipboard system that helps counteract Parkinson’s symptoms.

See how SteadyScrib works

SteadyScrib 450x336
After taking Engineering Entrepreneurship, Ryan Teo launched Minimal Snacks with the goal of revolutionizing snack foods. Teo and his team created an air-dried snack made from beef, shiitake mushrooms, red wine vinegar and salt.

Find out where to buy Minimal Snacks

Minimal Snacks