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Startups

Created by Northwestern engineering professor Nick Marchuk ’10 MS and David Meyer ’12 MS, ’15 PhD, nLab is a credit card–sized device that turns your laptop into an electronics lab and gives students a chance to practice hands-on circuit-building.

Learn how it works

An illustration of a woman sitting in front of a laptop and various electronic components. A large electronic dashboard sits on a table in the background.
Procurement management is essential for small businesses — but it’s also tedious and time-consuming work. Now there’s a virtual employee to help with that.

Learn more

Two men and a woman stand in an industrial space looking at the camera and smiling.
Wanting to improve the aviation industry’s diversity and accessibility, Melinda Holmes Ellwanger teamed up with her husband and son to launch Lima Flight, a mobile app that helps aspiring pilots find a flight instructor or flight school that fits their needs.

Buckle up

A black app button showing a compass with a yellow outline of a plane as the orientation indicator.
Northwestern computer scientist and artificial intelligence pioneer Kris Hammond has dedicated his career to studying and developing AI tools. He approaches AI with cautious optimism that it can be our partner — not replacement — in a new information age.

Explore the feature

An illustration of a robot and a person riding a wave on a surfboard. The wave is textured with computer coding circuitry.
The Northwestern Alumni Association bestows its greatest honor, the Alumni Medal, on four alumni for their professional achievement and service to the University.

Meet the recipients

T. Bondurant “Bon” French stands in doorway smiling at the camera.
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
Through Kellogg’s Levy Inspiration Grant Program, young entrepreneurs conduct firsthand research abroad to investigate potential business ideas. Students have traveled to Guyana, Switzerland, Vietnam, Japan and Australia to look into innovations in rum production, dairy farming, last-mile delivery services, mental health treatments using psilocybin, and putting insects on the menu at restaurants.

See what students discovered

switzerland

Set for Success

Winter 2025
Katlyn Gao is co-founder and CEO of League One Volleyball (LOVB), the largest youth volleyball community in the U.S. The organization is launching LOVB Pro, a women’s volleyball professional circuit that’s set to begin regular season play this January with franchises in six U.S.

Read the story

LOVB Pro players Annie Drews and Jordyn Poulter hug in celebration on the court, while teammate Chiaka Ogbogu points and smiles at their teammates in the foreground.
After struggling to get his young daughter to learn the rules of football, Mike Schroder launched Future Fans, a series of activity boxes that help kids learn the rules of the game through picture books and fun games. It’s about creating opportunities intergenerational connection, he says.

Learn more about Future Fans

Mike Schroder is in the stands of a Bengal Tigers football game. He is wearing a Bengal Tigers hat, sweatshirt and vest and holds his daughter Ella in his arms. Ella wears a bright yellow jacket.