11 university startups accepted into NYC Media Lab Combine accelerator

Eleven student-led startups will learn the business and build their products this winter and spring as part of the NYC Media Lab’s third cohort of its Combine accelerator program.

The Downtown Brooklyn–based organization is a consortium of the city’s universities and private-sector partners meant to grow the future of the city’s media industry. The consortium includes: The New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC), School of Visual Arts, New York University, Columbia University, The New School, CUNY, IESE and the Pratt Institute.

The Combine is the Media Lab’s accelerator program. Each startup receives a $25,000 grant and will have access to a network of mentors and businesses to learn from. The Media Lab recently promoted Amy Chen to be the Combine’s director.

NYC Media Lab announces the third annual cohort of #CombineNYC! Learn about the 11 startups participating in an intensive market validation + customer discovery curriculum, building concepts in emerging tech like #VR, #AR, #AI and #blockchain… https://t.co/WkVk2u6KVx pic.twitter.com/2t2SQ7Rqbs

— NYC Media Lab (@nycmedialab) January 22, 2018

Here are this cohort’s startups (with company descriptions supplied by Combine):

Aduri
NYU Interactive Telecommunications Program
Jesal Trivedi, Jahde Eve, Chaitanya Pattewar
Aduri uses technology and design to inspire more intentional and mindful living.

Akohub
Taiwan Startup Stadium
Ray Kung, Tinki Cheng, Jeremy Lin
Akohub is building a marketing platform that helps independent ecommerce brands boost conversion rates with retargeting, chatbot, and AI prediction models.

BitRights
Columbia Business School and Columbia University
Charlie Hanna, Chris Robichaud, Zane Grube
BitRights is a platform for content creators (i.e., artists, journalists, etc.) and institutions to establish a permanent and verifiable record of rights ownership using Ethereum blockchain technology and cryptography.

Brimly
School of Visual Arts
Yue Yuan, Ning Xu
Brimly is an augmented reality mobile application to help Type 2 Diabetics patients efficiently make better food choices while grocery shopping.

CurAItor
The New School, Parsons School of Design
Vivian Lee, Hannah Ekman, Tong Zhang
With museum demographics becoming less diverse, CurAItor aids museum curators in understanding their exhibits further, and allow them to experiment with future designs.

Music Playgrounds
NYU Steinhardt
Andre Gill, Yilu Guo, Willie Payne, Tyler Bisson
The Music Playgrounds are a web-based platform for young people to express themselves and learn from music of importance to various cultural institutions.

N-GEMS
NYU Interactive Telecommunications Program
Chetan Hasabnis, Michael Kripchak, Dimosthenis Markopoulos, Nitish Wakalkar
Next-Generation Emergency Systems use an IoT analytics platform, building-installed sensors, and drone-attached modules to reduce operational difficulty by providing real-time situational awareness of structures and person-locative abilities to first responders.

Ouvos
CUNY City College of New York, NYU Tandon School of Engineering
Ahmed Ben Mansour, Salman Siraj, Kevin Navarra
Ouvos is a community based navigation app that allows cyclists to share real time road conditions.

Ovee
The New School, Parsons School of Design
Courtney Snavely and Jane Mitchell
Ovee is an application that provides women with the necessary tools to take control of their sexual and reproductive health.

Rolling Muse
Cornell Tech, Columbia University
Sasha Stoikov, Sacha Stanton, Paul Heck
Discover music from like minded people with Rolling Muse.

Spaceplanar
Cornell Tech, The New School, Parsons School of Design
Andrew Mendez, Ran Sun, Tao Wei, Gretta Zhao, Maxime Martin
Spaceplanar is an AR app for event planners to place virtual furniture and re-arrange layouts in real-time in physical space to better communicate and deliver amazing events.