Applied Innovation and Ventures: From Real Problems to Market
The Tech Exploration Lab is where real-world problems meet emerging technology — and where the work of solving them leads somewhere. For industry partners, that means applied innovation that drives growth using frontier technology. For researchers and faculty, it means support in assessing the venture potential of promising research and finding pathways to bring it to market. For students, it means the resources, networks, and experience to build early-stage ventures.
What you see below is a snapshot of that work in motion — multidisciplinary teams tackling meaningful problems across health, security, productivity, sustainability, and more, in collaboration with industry partners, alumni, and campus researchers.
Health & Care
Student teams have consistently tackled some of the most pressing challenges in healthcare — from clinical training and caregiver burnout to neurological monitoring and patient communication.
- PersonaXR — A browser-based medical training platform using AI and immersive technology to simulate clinical exams, helping medical students improve readiness and pass rates.
- The Invisible Patient — An AI companion for caregivers of Alzheimer’s and dementia patients that detects early signs of burnout through natural, empathetic conversation.
- NeuroTrack — A mobile system that monitors subtle neurological changes in MS patients using daily tests and passive data, enabling earlier and more informed care.
- Ally AI — An emotionally intelligent AI companion that adapts to users over time to reduce loneliness and support emotional well-being.
- Hatti for Alzheimer’s — An AI-powered care companion that tracks routines, monitors wandering risks, and coordinates communication across home care, assisted living, and memory-care settings.
- Prescription Scanning App — An AI tool that helps ESL patients and older adults understand medications in plain language, with reminders and caregiver updates.
- MadGlow — An AI-powered skincare assistant that delivers personalized routines, progress tracking, and evidence-based product recommendations.
- GuideMyPlate — A nutrition app that fights obesity through actionable steps rather than overwhelming data, helping users build sustainable healthy habits.
- MedCheck — An AI tool that provides transparency around medication perceptions, helping patients make more informed decisions.
Environment, Safety & Public Infrastructure
Some of the Lab’s most consequential work addresses problems with broad societal stakes — from wildfire prediction and mitigation to real-time situational awareness in public and institutional settings.
- EmberAI — An autonomous aerial sensing and prediction platform for wildfire management that streams real-time perimeter data and near-term spread forecasts to agencies, utilities, landowners, and insurers — combining edge AI, calibrated sensors, and night-flight capabilities to protect people, property, and critical infrastructure.
- EverOS — A real-time AI orchestration platform for venue operators and security teams that integrates video, audio, and sensor data to detect and respond to incidents before they escalate — currently exploring pilots in defense and with police departments.
- Ares — Gives air traffic controllers AI-driven predictive awareness to identify conflicts and prevent incidents before they occur.
AI Infrastructure, Security & Developer Tools
Some of the Lab’s most technically ambitious work lives at the infrastructure layer — building the reliability, observability, and fairness tools that make AI systems trustworthy at scale.
- Cortexa — An AI memory observability layer that reduces hallucinations and improves reliability in agentic workflows by tracking how agents store and use information.
- Fairlytics — Real-time bias monitoring for machine learning models, surfacing fairness issues as predictions are made.
- Gantry — An agent orchestration tool within the IDE, enabling developers to structure and manage AI workflows more effectively.
- ProTecht — An AI compliance automation platform that helps federal cloud providers identify gaps in security documentation, reducing audit costs and accelerating FedRAMP authorization.
- TruChain — Uses blockchain to verify the authenticity of video content from elected officials, creating immutable provenance and stopping deepfakes at the source.
Productivity & Business Tools
From inbox management to legal document analysis, teams have built practical tools that reduce friction in everyday work — many with clear paths to commercial application.
- MottoNote — An AI memory and recall layer that captures decision-making context across meetings, documents, and conversations, turning scattered inputs into structured insights.
- Lyntra — An AI academic planner that breaks assignments into step-by-step sessions and schedules them around real student commitments.
- ScribeAI — Transforms raw notes and prompts into structured, high-quality written content for professionals and teams.
- BeaverAI — A Chrome extension that summarizes emails, identifies key tasks, and manages recurring themes to reduce inbox overload.
- Cosma — An on-device AI file management platform that organizes and retrieves files by context rather than filename, maintaining privacy while reducing clutter.
- Clear Cause — An AI tool that analyzes legal documents, highlights risk areas, and explains contract language in plain terms for individuals and small businesses.
- Inventory Automate — A mobile-first AR/AI inventory system that reduces counting time by approximately 70% and improves accuracy for bars, restaurants, and small operators.
- AI Trend Radar — A trend discovery platform that identifies early signals across social platforms and delivers predictive trend models and personalized recommendations for creators and agencies.
- Carmonic — Makes drivers proactive rather than reactive about vehicle maintenance by surfacing early warnings and actionable insights.
- BadgerFlix — Transforms long lecture content into short, bingeable, personalized episodes to improve comprehension and engagement.
Social, Community & Experience
Several teams have taken on the challenge of how people connect, discover, and engage in the real world — building platforms that use emerging technology to drive genuine human interaction.
- BluWorld — A social platform that helps users discover local events and rewards real-world participation through gamified experiences and local business partnerships.
- StyleSwap — Lets college students digitally share closets with friends to borrow clothes, reduce waste, and save money.
- UniBud — An AI-powered student guide that personalizes milestones, surfaces relevant events and resources, and gives advisors real-time engagement insights.
- ClearMove — Protects renters by turning leases, checklists, and move-in photos into organized, shareable evidence for dispute resolution.
- TimeMyGate — A smart pre-flight planner that tells travelers exactly when to leave for the airport based on real-time conditions.
- SeaPay — A blockchain payment platform enabling hotels and lodging providers to accept cryptocurrency, reducing transaction fees and expanding options for global travelers.
- Grow Together — An app that finds when friends are free, suggests places to go, and grows a virtual garden when users spend real time together — making it easier to turn digital connection into real-world plans.
Blockchain & Decentralized Technology
A growing cluster of Lab projects is exploring how blockchain and decentralized infrastructure can bring trust, transparency, and new models of exchange to everyday problems.
- CredentialHub — A decentralized professional verification platform powered by Solana blockchain, making credentials tamper-proof and instantly verifiable.
- Phanta — AI-powered, blockchain-native portfolio management with real-time on-chain insights and decentralized group investment tools.
- UniMarket — A blockchain-powered marketplace exclusively for verified students to trade textbooks, gear, and services with trust and minimal fees.
- BadgerTutor — A peer tutoring platform that uses blockchain to establish trust and transparency between tutors and students.
- BadgerBadges — A blockchain-based achievement system that turns real UW–Madison experiences into verifiable, tamper-proof digital badges.
- Cool Router — A decentralized oracle network that brings real-time AI directly to Solana smart contracts with no polling or complexity.
Campus & Research Translation
A growing area of Lab work involves bridging the gap between university research and real-world application — helping faculty and researchers assess the venture potential of promising work and find pathways to bring it to market.
- School of Veterinary Medicine Translation Tool — A real-time AI translation tool improving communication between English-speaking veterinarians and Spanish-speaking dairy farm workers, developed in direct partnership with the UW School of Veterinary Medicine.
- ARHat+ — Built on UW-Madison research, a smartphone-based LiDAR and AR tool that rapidly identifies home safety risks and aging-in-place modifications, streamlining documentation for care professionals and integrating with EHR and insurance systems.
- RAAS (Robotics-as-a-Service) — A commercialization enablement platform that gives university robotics researchers a structured path from lab to market readiness, reducing technical fragmentation and accelerating development timelines.
- AI Research Assistant — An AI model designed to streamline workflows and improve outcomes for academic researchers across synthesis, analysis, and discovery.
- Chatbot for Entrepreneurs — A conversational AI tool helping small business owners and entrepreneurs navigate uncertainty and make more confident planning decisions.
Industry-Driven Innovation Challenges
In addition to student-initiated projects, the Lab runs structured innovation challenges in partnership with industry sponsors — giving companies access to fresh thinking on frontier problems while giving students experience working on real business challenges.
Recent challenge areas have included:
- Health & Wellness — How to deliver personalized experiences using AI
- Manufacturing — Using AI to optimize trade programs and improve retailer partnerships
- Retail — Engaging audiences inundated with choices to improve online and in-store experience with AI
- AgTech — Improving producer productivity in horticulture with AI
- Real Estate — Using AR and AI to improve trust and safety in short-term rentals
- Consumer Goods — Creating seamless AI-powered customer experiences to build brand engagement and loyalty
- Education & Training — Leveraging VR and AI to lower cost and increase access to enterprise training
Interested in bringing a challenge to the Lab, exploring a research translation opportunity, or supporting student innovation? Contact us.