WPI Student Founders Win $70,000 at Demo Day 2026
William Sobral ‘27 and Lorenzo Hess won the $20,000 Aram & Alba Kalenian Award, the top honor at WPI’s i3 Lab Demo Day on November 4, for Antigaius Inc., which makes custom drone motors in the United States. For Sobral, it was a return to the WPI stage after Antigaius placed second at GOAT TANK in February.
Forty founders showcased their startups at the Rubin Campus Center in the largest Demo Day yet, some with early ideas and others with companies already launched. More than 400 people attended, including parents, faculty, deans, donors, and Worcester community partners. The prize pool has nearly doubled in three years, from $37,000 at the first Demo Day in 2024 to $55,000 in 2025 and $70,000 across 15 prizes this year.
“The best part of watching Demo Day grow is seeing who steps up to pitch,” said Ardian Preci, director of innovation and entrepreneurship programs. “This year, high school students from Mass Academy shared their startups alongside WPI undergraduates, master’s students, and PhD students. With 40 founders showing what they’d built, the excitement in the room was contagious. You could come to cheer on a friend and leave thinking, ‘Next year, that could be me.’”
Kwamie Dunbar, interim dean of the WPI Business School, welcomed guests to the Odeum at noon. For the first time, the WPI Makerspace showcased student projects alongside the founders’ posters and prototypes. Three pitch competitions followed: Ideate, Innovate, and Incubate. The audience voted too, naming TULIO Rehab Tech its favorite. The TULIO team, Siena Callizo and Daniel Alvarenga, also won the Cornerstone Bank Award in the Incubate track.
The Duane D. Pearsall Fire Protection Awards doubled their reach, from two recipients in 2025 to four this year. ARES Systems, ForeSmoke, Rescue Reach, and AirPat each received $5,000, for a total of $20,000.
Alumni were part of the day as well. Mike Abrams ‘77 traveled from Texas to see the Nancy & Mike Abrams Award go to CiviCAD Engineering. John Marczewski ‘85, P’23, an i3 Lab mentor and a new member of WPI’s Board of Trustees, also joined the celebration.
Professor Rosanna Garcia opened the dinner, and Amelia Thomas, CEO of River Otter Renewables, delivered the keynote. Thomas co-founded the company with WPI professor Michael Timko to turn waste into renewable fuel. As part of the i3 Lab’s continuing partnership with WPI’s Office of Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship (OTIE), Terry Adams presented Thomas with this year’s Vignaly Award.
“Demo Day captures what we mean by an immersive education at WPI,” Professor Rosanna Garcia said. “All year, the i3 Lab invites students to explore an idea and helps them build the confidence and skills to pursue it. Through our Ideate, Innovate, and Incubate programming, students work with mentors, take part in workshops, and grow their ventures through opportunities like the Goat Impact Summer Accelerator (GISA). On Demo Day, that work comes together as founders show what they’ve built and where they want to take it next.”
Thank you to this year’s judges, Renuka Babu Brown, Sandhya Balasubramanian, Greg Dalle-Molle, Randall Lucas, Marsha Rolle, Ernesto Martinez, Rosanna Garcia, Paul Kalenian and Zachary Dutton, for sharing their time and expertise with our founders. We are also grateful to Auxilium, Cornerstone Bank, New England Innovations, and The Wire Group for their continued support of Demo Day and the students who take the stage each year.
Meet the 2026 Demo Day Winners
Incubate
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Antigaius Inc. | 1st · $20,000 · Aram & Alba Kalenian Award: William Sobral and Lorenzo Hess
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CiviCAD Engineering (The Intersection Company) | 2nd · $10,000 · Nancy & Mike Abrams Award: Nicholas C. Sadowski and Thomas Ricci
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Lithikos Technologies | 3rd · $7,000 · Lawrence D’Addario ‘90 Award: Dalton Vassallo
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TULIO Rehab Tech | 4th · $3,000 · Cornerstone Bank Award: Siena Callizo and Daniel Alvarenga
Innovate
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Vodara Molecular | 1st · $5,000 · Auxilium Award: Anna Sychevsky, Maxwell Markey, and Suzanne Scarlata
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Subverse Education | 2nd · $2,000 · Joe Klimek ‘94 Award: Larry Ma, Jim Xiang, Yun Zhao, Zirun Yang, Zixuan Yin, and Zihang He
Ideate
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JewelSpeak | 1st · $1,500 · New England Innovations Award: Maria Nikolayeva
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StabiliQ | 2nd · $500 · New England Innovations Award: Salman Azzimani, Abhiraam Venigalla, Mohammad Golji, and Suhrit Ghosh
Duane D. Pearsall Fire Protection Awards ($5,000 each)
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ARES Systems: Ivan Zou and Jake Claybrook
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ForeSmoke: Mobeen Hameed
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Rescue Reach: Veronika Wang
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AirPat: Fauzan Hasanbasri
Wire Group People’s Choice Awards
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TULIO Rehab Tech | 1st · $500: Siena Callizo and Daniel Alvarenga
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Portable Affordable Lifting Solutions (PALS) | 2nd · $300: Xavier Horta and Carl Kakuyo
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Drone’s-Eye Bridge Inspection | 3rd · $200: Amber Murphy, Hunter Wittner, and Ekin Chau
People
