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On September 16, Duke I&E hosted its annual Matchmaker event, and the room was buzzing. Students packed in with standing room only to hear thirteen founders pitch their ideas and invite peers to join their teams. Each founder had just a few minutes to share their vision, the problem they’re tackling, and the skills they most need.
This year’s presenters represented a wide spectrum of Duke’s schools—Trinity, Pratt, the Graduate School, Fuqua, and the Medical School. Together, they showcased the breadth of creativity thriving at Duke:
- Elisa Torres Durney pitched an organization to inspire girls to pursue quantum computing.
- Day Kim introduced a smart hair tie that doubles as a dorm or office key, a payment tool, and more.
- Cheri Ho Gan envisioned an ethical AI marketplace for artists.
- Meera Kumaar created a symptom management tool for women and girls who have PCOS.
- Koudy Desiraju Sarad shared a vertical disease management platform that provides integrated liver care.
- David Llera has an early stage idea for a digital wellness platform that uses subliminal stimuli to support mental health and mindset transformation.
- Cecilia Emerenciano Gurgel came armed with two different ideas: an AI-powered dermatology app that can triage skin conditions instantly from a smartphone photo, and a tool to improve clinical case discussions in a medical training setting.
- Stewart Roeling has a solution to combat antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections.
- Han Zhang wants to replace authorship positions on papers with contribution shares to more accurately measure academic impact, efficiency, fairness, and productivity
- Stephen Albright has just launched AphasiaGPT for people who have language disabilities.
- Hakeem Shitta-Bey is building technology to improve professional networking.
- Kush Kapoor is developing an idea that integrates fitness into a social app.
- Sarp Piskinoglu shared his innovation of a closed-loop implant for neurogenic bladder, as catheter dependence and poor alternatives leave millions with neurogenic underactive bladder without reliable treatment.
Some students had been refining their ventures for years; others were just getting started. But all of them shared the same drive: to solve real problems and find collaborators who believe in their mission.
Matchmaker has sparked co-founder partnerships, opened doors to hands-on learning, and launched ventures that might never have existed otherwise. This year carried that same energy: curiosity, optimism, and the sense that big things can start in a single conversation.