2023 Completed

2023 NVC

Hardware Innovation and Marketplace Platforms

Awards

Category	Place	Team	Prize	Project
Grand Finale	Winner	VagAligna Fiza Qureshi, Hailey Matyac, Angie Espino, Maile Adams	$20,000	Medical device designed to expedite the healing of vaginal tissue after childbirth or injury.
Grand Finale	Runner-Up	Leprendo Dan Ta, Dylan Riffle, Kanu Chandra, Nina Nguyen	$5,000	Specialty food marketplace using short-form video to connect farmers to consumers.
Track Award (Business Products)	1st	Helios	$10,000	Aftermarket license plate kit with radar/cameras for 360-degree driver safety.
Track Award (Business Products)	2nd	Orii.AI	$5,000	Generative AI scheduling platform for student time management.
Track Award (Consumer Products)	1st	Help Belt	$10,000	A universal seat belt aid that empowers individuals of all ages, abilities and backgrounds to buckle themselves in with safety and dignity.
Track Award (Consumer Products)	2nd	Omni Pet Club Penny Love, Rae Chen	$5,000	Multi-way configurable leash system for multi-pet owners.
Track Award (Consumer Services)	1st	Leprendo Dan Ta, Dylan Riffle, Kanu Chandra, Nina Nguyen	$10,000	See Grand Finale Runner-Up.
Track Award (Consumer Services)	2nd	ChewRank Chi Wei Chen, Hsin-yi Lin, Wei-Chia Hsu, Xiaohan Li, XinYao Xu	$5,000	The restaurant discovery app of the new generation, offering integrated marketing solutions for restaurants through self-generated traffic.
Track Award (Life Sciences)	1st	Hyperion Therapeutics Jennings Luu, Krzysztof Palczewski	$10,000	A robust pipeline of patented, mechanism-based therapies to combat leading causes of blindness in earlier stages of disease, with superior efficacy and safety over the current standard of care.
Track Award (Life Sciences)	2nd	VagAligna Fiza Qureshi, Hailey Matyac, Angie Espino, Maile Adams	$5,000	See Grand Finale Winner.
Track Award (Social Enterprise)	1st	Shower Power	$10,000	An innovative shower system that saves 5% of household water while providing the instant hot water consumers need for their morning shower.
Track Award (Social Enterprise)	2nd	TeamMade UCI/OCC Partnership Team (individual roster not published)	$5,000	Providing affordable and sustainable housing for lower-income and unhoused families with Modular Dwelling Units (MDUs).

Primary source: Merage press release.

Post-competition outcomes

• VagAligna No public outcome Team leader Fiza Qureshi's LinkedIn shows she is now a Product Analyst at Reynolds and Reynolds, not building VagAligna full-time. Project requires clinical trials and FDA approval; no announced incorporated entity, f...
• Leprendo Operating leprendo.com live with 2026 copyright, active product catalog (specialty produce, dried fruits, oils). Co-founders Dylan Riffle and Dan Ta. Reported $400K first-year sales. Pivoted from short-form-video food marketpla...
• Hyperion Therapeutics Operating hyperioneye.com active. Newport Beach, CA. Company founded 2022. Founders: Krzysztof (Kris) Palczewski (internationally renowned chemist / pharmacologist / vision scientist; ~50 patents approved or pending) and Jennin...
• Shower Power No public outcome A 2023 NVC finalist with no incorporated company, no traceable site, and no follow-on funding.
• Omni Pet Club Operating Modular multi-pet leash system on sale at omnipetclub.com. An earlier draft of this archive claimed retail distribution via Chewy / Walmart / Amazon; verification on 2026-05-11 found those listings are for a different...
• TeamMade Operating UCI/Orange Coast College student team continues iterating on modular ADUs. Their LuminOCity unit was donated to Homeless Intervention Services-OC and opened to house at-risk youth in July 2025.
• Helios No public outcome Aftermarket license plate kit with radar/cameras for 360-degree driver safety. No traceable post-competition activity past 2023 award.
• Orii.AI No public outcome Generative AI scheduling platform for student time management. No traceable post-competition activity.
• Help Belt No public outcome Universal seat belt aid for individuals with limited mobility or arthritis. No traceable post-competition activity (an unrelated FRAXA 'HELP Belts' is a different product).
• ChewRank No public outcome Restaurant/Pet food discovery app based on trusted rankings. No traceable post-competition activity.