Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), the nation's oldest technological university, today announced the inaugural winners of the Ajit Prabhu '98 Catalyst Fund Apex Awards, administered through the Severino Center for Technological Entrepreneurship. The three awards totaling $75,000 recognize the most promising student- and faculty-led innovations at RPI with the highest potential for real-world commercial impact.

The awards are made possible by a substantial gift from Ajit Prabhu, a 1998 RPI graduate and co-founder and CEO of Quest Global, a global engineering services firm. The Catalyst Fund supports a range of innovation and entrepreneurship activities at RPI, with the Apex Awards representing its highest honors. 

"RPI opened my eyes to what might be possible, and it's deeply meaningful to see these honorees carrying forward that same curiosity and drive to tackle real challenges in the world," Prabhu said. "Whatever success I've had is rooted in the mentors, institutions, and communities that supported me along the way. I'm grateful for the chance to give back and encourage the next generation of innovators at RPI."

“The winners in each category are true innovators whose work has the potential to change the world,” said Severino Center director Eric Ledet ‘95, ‘03 Ph.D. “There was stiff competition in each category, with 51 applicants overall. These winners are developing technologies that show tremendous potential for commercialization, and could prove to be transformative in their respective fields.”

THE INAUGURAL APEX AWARD WINNERS

Tough Tech MVP Award ($15,000)

Winner: StarStack, Inc.

Founders: Sam Kudarauskas '28; Liam Gavin '26

StarStack is a turnkey STEM education platform targeting elementary through high school students. The company's flagship product is a kit-based, build-it-yourself 3D printer paired with a project-based online curriculum that teaches foundational design skills, including computer-aided design (CAD). The compact, upgradable printer is designed for ease of use, while self-paced lessons run in standard web browsers and are compatible with low-cost devices such as Chromebooks, enabling students to progress independently across diverse classroom environments. Following a successful beta test in 2025, StarStack has pre-orders in place for summer 2026.

"This recognition is an incredible honor and a testament to what's possible when you put powerful, hands-on tools directly into the hands of students," Kudarauskas said. "With our alpha behind us and pre-orders ahead, we're more motivated than ever to get StarStack's STEAM curriculum into classrooms and foster a new generation of makers, engineers and innovators."

Faculty Translation Grant ($30,000)

Winner: HARMONIC-IR

Founders: Marjorie McShane, Ph.D.; Sergei Nirenburg, Ph.D. 

HARMONIC-IR is an AI system designed to enable natural-language robot programming. Built on a novel intelligence platform called OntoAgentic AI, the system uses knowledge-based agents as orchestrators with large language models (LLMs) serving as tools — a departure from conventional LLM-first architectures. The approach is adaptable across manufacturing, defense, healthcare, and other domains, and is designed to deliver significant reductions in time and cost. The technology currently encompasses approximately 9,000 ontological concepts and 29,000 lexicon entries.

The Faculty Translation Grant supports the commercialization of early-stage faculty research aligned with RPI or Quest Global focus technology areas.

"It's a real honor to receive RPI's Apex award," McShane said. "For decades we have been doing foundational research on cognitive agent systems that can serve as transparent and trustworthy partners for people. Our new HARMONIC platform for OntoAgentic AI will help to translate those advances into operational robotic systems, and this award and recognition will accelerate our path toward commercialization."

Catalyst Pre-Seed Award ($30,000)

Winner: Talinted, Inc.

Founder: William Lawler (Chemical Engineering, Ph.D. candidate)

Talinted has developed a novel gene editing technology designed to overcome the limitations of existing tools such as CRISPR, which are constrained in the types of cells they can affect. Talinted's platform is engineered to perform gene editing safely and effectively across a wider range of cell types and anatomical locations, with the high efficiency required for clinical relevance, while also reducing the risk of off-target genetic modifications. The patent-pending technology is at the proof-of-concept stage, with in vivo testing planned for 2026. The company sees potential applications in treating Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and osteoporosis, among other genetic conditions.

"This award will help us validate that our approach to gene editing — making it safer, more versatile, and accessible across a far broader range of conditions — is a direction worth pursuing," Lawler said. "We believe Talinted's technology has osteoporosis, and this recognition brings us one step closer to making that vision a reality."