Columbia Venture Competition 2020

Startup Columbia Millard Chan ’99 Technology Challenge 2025

2025 Winners! Kathedra, Milkshaker, SWERV, Cadre Technology Services LLC (Photo credits to Sirin Samman)

Columbia Engineering hosted its 2025 Columbia Venture Competition Finals.

Winners of the Millard Chan ’99 Technology Challenge, part of Startup Columbia, were selected on April 17th Startup Columbia is a series of campus-wide startup competitions offering non-dilutive cash prizes to the winning teams. The challenge recognizes startups for their solid foundation of applied, solution-focused, and technological innovation with the opportunity to win seed funding for their ventures. $50,000 in funding was awarded to the top three teams in the Technology Challenge and $10,000 for the Engineering for Humanity prize.

🥇First Place ($25,000) | Kathedra: Revolutionizing furniture manufacturing with first upholstery robot. Kathedra is building the first upholstery robot to help premium furniture manufacturers facing severe labor shortages. 

🥈Second Place ($15,000) | MilkShaker: Automated Mastitis Prevention for Breastfeeding Women 
MilkShaker is a fully-automated wearable to prevent mastitis and clogged milk ducts in breastfeeding women.

🥉Third Place ($10,000) | SWERV: Improving health and comfort with better air. SWERV is a patent-pending, window-mounted ERV that efficiently cycles fresh air while recovering heat and moisture, improving air quality without increasing energy bills.

🏅Engineering for Humanity Award ($10,000) | Cadre technologies Services LLC: AI-powered glasses empowering the visually impaired. Cadre Tech’s AI Glasses are an innovative assistive technology designed to enhance independence for visually impaired individuals.

A massive thank you to our judges: