iStartup Lab

Micro Grants

While the proliferation of SaaS platforms and cloud services have reduced the cost of validating startup concepts, founders still need to incur certain costs to launch a business.

Recognizing that these fees — such as the cost of forming a corporation or LLC — can represent a significant hurdle for student founders, the iStartup Lab provides micro grants to qualified iSchool startup teams.

Grant recipients

Summer 2024: Undergraduate student category

GAIA

Pushkar Rimmalapudi (INFO ’26)
Akshith Bathena (NYU ’26)

GAIA employs enhanced rock weathering to combat global warming and boost agricultural productivity in India by addressing high atmospheric CO2 levels — a major climate change factor. We use basalt and wollastonite dust to improve soil and increase crop yields. Our innovative approach includes sourcing minerals from local quarries, processing them into fine dust, distributing it to farmers, and assisting in application and soil monitoring. This process ensures effective carbon sequestration, bolsters local economies, and enhances food security in vulnerable communities, marking a significant step in ecological and social sustainability.

HuskySwap

Gunner Dohrenwend (INFO ’26)
Arthur Stedman (CSE ’26)

HuskySwap aims to be an online marketplace where University of Washington students can buy and sell goods within their campus community. We address the problem of inefficient and low-visibility methods currently used by students to exchange items. Our solution streamlines the exchange process, making it convenient for students to find what they need or sell what they don’t. This not only saves money and reduces waste, but also fosters a stronger sense of community among Huskies.

ProtoScore

Evan Chang (INFO ’26)
Edward Lee (INFO ’26)
Angelo Tran (Applied Computing ’24)

ProtoScore addresses inefficiencies in clinical trials by streamlining protocol assessment and optimization. We serve clinical researchers and healthcare professionals, providing a solution that evaluates clinical trial protocols for a burden score. Users can upload their protocols, and Protoscore assigns a burden score based on cross-referenced metadata, offering data-driven recommendations for revisions. This process enhances the efficiency and quality of clinical trials, ultimately prioritizing patient care and accelerating the development of new treatments.

Summer 2024: Graduate student/alumni category

Incskill

Lakshya Garg (MSIM ’25)
Nishit Bhasin (MSIM ’24)

Incskill addresses the critical issue of digital accessibility for 1.3 billion people with disabilities, enabling access to digital products, meeting accessibility requirements, minimizing legal risks, and improving brand reputation. Our solution, the NClude Portal, is a SaaS platform that identifies and remediates accessibility issues across documents, web, and mobile apps. For documents, it offers AI-powered remediation and human verification. For web and mobile apps, it provides continuous monitoring, bug triage, integration with developer tools, efficient bug remediation, and comprehensive audits.

inStroketor

Esha Bantwal (INFO ’24)
Lily Jeffs (INFO ’24)
Manav Agarwal (INFO ’25)
Aldijana Sabanovic (INFO ’24)
Leah Jia (INFO ’24)

In the US, stroke is the leading cause of adult disability, but current rehabilitation practices are often inefficient, costly, and unmotivating for patients. inStroketor is a digital stroke rehabilitation tool that provides guided exercises and streamlines the rehabilitation process. Features include a progress plan, the ability to walk through rehabilitation exercises step-by-step, and resources to connect with other stroke patients nationwide.

Moments

Marina Wooden (INFO ’24)
John Ho (INFO ’23)
Jonathan Shechtman (INFO ’24)
Hamda Hassan (INFO ’23)

Algorithmic curation has stripped the authenticity from the music discovery process, and listeners lack autonomy when trying to find new music. Moments places human connection at the heart of music discovery. Our key feature is a map where users can share songs from places they’ve visited, allowing users to share and discover music tastes both around them and across the world in real time. Users can engage through comments, sparking conversations about music.

Pivot

Shinjini Guha (MSIM ’24)
Adrian Lavergne (MSIM ’24)
Lelo Gemtessa (MSIM ’24)

Pivot addresses the challenges of career transitions. We serve professionals who are seeking to change careers but are struggling with uncertainty and lack of guidance. Our solution is a personalized career transition platform that builds user profiles based on skills and experience, analyzes skill gaps for desired roles, scrapes and matches relevant job postings, and provides tailored guidance for career shifts.

Grant amounts and timelines

Summer 2024

We awarded 3 grants of $500 each to teams that primarily consisted of undergraduate students, and 4 grants of $500 each to teams that primarily consisted of graduate students or alumni. The timeline was as follows:

  • Applications open: June 25
  • Applications close: July 31
  • Grant recipients announced: August 13

2024-25 academic year

For the 2024-25 academic year, we expect to run either one or two grant cycles. More details will be provided once the grant amounts, number of grants, and timeline have been finalized.

Eligibility requirements

All teams must include at least one current iSchool student, or an iSchool alumnus who graduated during the current or previous academic year. Applications that do not identify an eligible iSchool student or alumnus will not be considered.

Teams do not need to have a corporate entity formed in order to receive a grant. However, the team must have access to a US bank account for receiving the funds.

If all team members are foreign nationals, please be prepared to present the following documentation for whichever team member will be accepting the funds:

  • Copy of electronic I-94
  • Copy of identity page from passport (or for Canadian citizens, a copy of enhanced driver’s license, trusted traveler card, or traveler’s driver’s license and social insurance card, in lieu of identity page from passport)

These documents should not be submitted with your grant application, but will be requested later in the process if needed.

Selection criteria

After screening each application to confirm which teams meet the eligibility requirements, the following criteria will be used to rate the applications and select the grant recipients:

  • Team provides a coherent description of the problem they are addressing, the personas they’re serving, and the solution they’re building.
  • Concept was initially developed through an iSchool academic or extracurricular program. This includes iSchool courses and Capstones, hackathons run by iSchool-affiliated RSOs (such as WINFO and DubHacks), and startup incubators and accelerators run by iSchool-affiliated RSOs (such as DubHacks Next).
  • Team provides a thoughtful and credible narrative about how the business will produce a positive social impact. This may include articulating how they are leveraging frameworks like the UN Sustainable Development Goals and Value Sensitive Design as part of their product development process.
  • Team articulates a sensible use of funds (such as using a portion of the grant to pay the fees for forming a corporation or LLC).
  • Team explains why the grant will help them achieve milestones that would otherwise be out of reach in light of their current financial resources.

How to apply

To apply for a micro grant, please fill out the Google Form.

Only one application should be submitted per startup team. You’ll have the opportunity to list your teammates while filling out the form.