2018 Completed

2018 NVC

Orthodontics and Social Good

Awards

Category	Place	Team	Prize	Project
Track Award (Life Sciences)	1st	Mechanodontics Zahra Mamaghani, Mahdi Tehrani, Mehdi Peikar, Ishita (last name not preserved in Merage 2018 source), James Wratten	$10,000	Behind-the-teeth braces reducing treatment time to 1 year.
Track Award (Life Sciences)	2nd	First Step Diagnostics Max Lechner, Hannah Mylabathula, Dr. Elizabeth Chao, Dave Ferguson	$5,000	Early diagnosis of infant behavioral issues (3 weeks old).
Track Award (Social Enterprise)	1st	Apeel Juice Keene Do, Jacqueline Kao, Matthew Nguyen, Huan Quach	$10,000	Juice made from cosmetically defective produce to reduce waste.
Track Award (Social Enterprise)	2nd	CarDana Anthony Glenn, Jan Biermeyer, Gonzalo Vargas, Derek Singh	$5,000	Platform democratizing charitable vehicle donations.
Track Award (Business Products)	1st	Celebrate in a Snap Jyothi Pradhan, Emily Chan, Jose Enrique Hernandez, Junaid Ahmed	$10,000	All-in-one party supply packages.
Track Award (Business Products)	2nd	SolarLab Hao Peng, Yanchen Wu, Jiale Chen, Edward Li	$5,000	Design tool for solar PV systems.
Track Award (Consumer Products)	1st	ARTEM Emily Vu, Cesar Corral, Matthew Peterson	$10,000	Marketplace for underground artists aged 18-24.
Track Award (Consumer Products)	2nd	Gimme Dhananjay Kumar, Philip Erford, Brenton Higa, John Dang, Justin McDonald	$5,000	App helping consumers decide where to eat.
Track Award (Consumer Services)	1st	Wing Karan Kanwar, Martin Gomez, Tod Srisengfa, Monish Ramadoss, Jackson Wickman	$10,000	Tech for corporate sustainable competitiveness.
Track Award (Consumer Services)	2nd	Graduate Data Mohammad Fidaali, Daniel Dai, Emily Walker, David Liu	$5,000	Social networking for student mentorship.
Tech Surge (Technology)	1st	First Step Diagnostics Max Lechner, Hannah Mylabathula, Dr. Elizabeth Chao, Dave Ferguson	$10,000	See Track Award (Life Sciences) 2nd.
Tech Surge (Technology)	2nd	Closed Loop Plastics William Amos, Aldrin Lupisan, Jesse Jackson, Sharon To, Ivette Morales	$7,500	Localized plastic recycling infrastructure.
Tech Surge (Technology)	3rd	LaserFocus Natalie Wong, Nasam Chokr, Anthony Ricaldi, Brad Padgitt, Bryan Ou, Michael Nguyen	$5,000	Tech Surge 3rd Place per Merage 2018 press release.
Tech Surge (Technology)	4th	EchoSol Arghavan Arafati, Yen Cathy Pham, Kasra Karimian, Mohit Pandita	$2,500	Tech Surge 4th Place per Merage 2018 press release.

Primary source: Merage press release.

Judges

• Chris Halliwell (Beall Center Board Member)

Press release otherwise describes judges only as 'experienced investors, entrepreneurs, and senior business practitioners.'

Post-competition outcomes

• Mechanodontics Operating Rebranded as BRIUS Technologies (Carrollton, TX); rebrand confirmed via Crunchbase / CB Insights. Launched the Brava hidden-braces system commercially on 2022-06-30. **Brava+ System launched 2024** (lingual / back-of-...
• Apeel Juice No public outcome Founder Keene Do's juice startup has no traceable commercial presence post-2018. Not to be confused with Apeel Sciences (Santa Barbara coatings company), which is unrelated.
• Closed Loop Plastics Shut down closedloopplastics.com now serves a Sedo parking page. LinkedIn page exists but most recent press coverage is from 2021. Moved from UCI to Long Beach for a brief expansion phase but appears wound down.
• ARTEM No public outcome A UCI undergrad team's online marketplace for underground artists 18-24. No Crunchbase, no surviving site, no LinkedIn company page traceable.
• First Step Diagnostics No public outcome No traceable follow-on commercial activity for the 2018 First Step Diagnostics team (Max Lechner, Hannah Mylabathula, Dr. Elizabeth Chao, Dave Ferguson). An earlier draft of this archive incorrectly linked First Step ...
• CarDana Operating Transparent charitable vehicle-donation platform; site live at cardana.co with active KBB-based donation flow, partner/charity onboarding, and a 20% flat-fee model.
• Wing Operating Rebranded as Wing Assistant. Raised a $2.1M seed in 2021 (Tracxn lists Mar 31, 2022 as the latest funding date for the seed round). Continues as a subscription managed-virtual-assistant service in 2025-2026 with newer...
• Celebrate in a Snap No public outcome All-in-one party supply packages. No traceable post-competition commercial activity in indexed sources.
• SolarLab No public outcome Design tool for solar PV systems. No traceable post-competition commercial activity.
• Gimme No public outcome App helping consumers decide where to eat. No traceable post-competition activity.
• Graduate Data No public outcome Social networking for student mentorship. No traceable post-competition activity. Team member Daniel Dai previously appeared on 2017 Purist.