Meet Our 2026 CIC Undergraduate Winners

Since 1990, the National Inventors Hall of Fame^® has recognized and rewarded our nation’s most promising student inventors through the annual Collegiate Inventors Competition^® (CIC).

The 2026 competition was held Oct. 14-15 at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia. Finalists presented their inventions to Judges including National Inventors Hall of Fame Inductees and USPTO officials, gaining expert insight while competing for cash prizes and patent acceleration.

Congratulations to Our 2026 CIC Undergraduate Winners: CPRight

Representing the University of Washington, our Undergraduate Winners are Shubham Bansal, Prisha Hemani, Deeya Sharma and Nikhita Vaddineni, who invented CPRight! They received a cash prize of $10,000 and a USPTO Patent Acceleration Certificate.

This team’s invention offers real-time guidance for emergency resuscitation. Each year, more than 350,000 Americans experience a heart attack outside a hospital, and about 90% of them die. Bystanders are often willing to help but are unable to deliver high-quality CPR. CPRight is a single-use, wallet-sized patch a rescuer places on a patient’s sternum. Displaying simple LED cues, it shows the rescuer, in real time, whether compression depths and rates are effective. CPRight does not require any additional technology or equipment, making it accessible and easy to use when seconds count to save lives.

“I hope CPRight can help make effective CPR more achievable for ordinary people,” said Sharma. “An out-of-hospital cardiac arrest is an extraordinary situation placed in the hands of an ordinary person: a family member, friend, coworker or stranger who may never have imagined themselves responding to a medical emergency. We cannot expect every bystander to become a healthcare professional at that moment, but we can design technology that better supports them.”

Highlighting their invention’s affordability, Hemani said, “It's cheap enough to put in every AED cabinet, EMS kit, classroom and home first-aid kit, so correct CPR stops depending on training someone may or may not have and instead becomes something the device just walks you through. If we get this right, more people survive cardiac arrest outside a hospital. That's the entire reason we're building it.”

Speaking on the team’s motivation to enter CIC, Vaddineni said, “We entered CIC because we had a really exciting idea that we believed was worth pursuing through the patent process, and we wanted to learn how to turn that idea into a real-world innovation. We were also inspired by the success of previous CIC winners, many of whom have gone on to build viable businesses with the support and resources they gained through the competition.”

Bansal added, “We entered CIC because the National Inventors Hall of Fame cares about inventions that reach vulnerable populations and make their lives better. We believe in that too. We want this patch inside AED cabinets, first-aid kits and EMS bags. This competition gives us the judging, the mentorship and the visibility to get there faster.”

Congratulations to Our 2026 CIC Undergraduate Runners-Up: KAIRS

Representing the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, our Undergraduate Runners-Up are Samanyu Dixit, Hieu Minh Doan, Sahaj Sapovadia and Chinmay Singh, the inventors of KAIRS (Knee Artificial Intelligence Rehabilitation Sleeve)! They brought home a $5,000 cash prize to advance their innovative journey.

This team developed a smart solution for knee recovery. After knee injuries and surgeries, patients follow months-long rehabilitation routines. KAIRS, a wearable rehab system, continuously monitors the range of knee motion and quality of movement during at-home exercises and everyday activities on the move. With a flexible, sensor-embedded sleeve, mobile app and cloud-based machine learning model, KAIRS delivers individualized progress tracking for patients and remote monitoring for clinicians. This invention could improve rehab adherence, support clinical decisions, enable personalized care plans and expand recovery guidance to patients with limited access to physical therapy.

“We hope KAIRS can give patients and clinicians better information about progress between visits, helping identify problems earlier and allowing rehabilitation to be tailored to the individual. Ultimately, I want it to help more people return to the activities and quality of life they value,” explained Sapovadia.

“The big dream for KAIRS is to change how rehabilitation works,” Singh said. “If even one patient who would otherwise be struggling through the hardest parts of rehab comes out better because of the sleeve, I'll count the whole invention, and everything we went through to build it, as a success.”

“What motivates me as an inventor is the impact that a device can have on a patient’s life,” Doan said. “That ability to create something tangible that can make a lasting difference in someone’s day-to-day life is what motivates me to keep inventing.”

Dixit shared, “I am incredibly proud of the insights I gained from engaging with patients, physical therapists and medical professionals to truly understand their needs. Additionally, I am proud of our team's resilience in pushing through prototyping challenges and technical hurdles to build a tool that directly addresses those pain points.”

Describing the team’s motivation to enter CIC, Singh said, “A few things pulled our team toward CIC. The first was the community around it, along with the real support the competition gives its Finalists as they sharpen and communicate their work. The second was the chance to build something with the potential to change how people recover from injury. And the energy of the competition itself, being surrounded by other student inventors who are all chasing hard problems, was something we wanted to be part of.”

Who Are Our 2026 CIC Graduate Winners?

To learn about our Graduate Winners, check out our blog. Find out more about CIC when you keep exploring our website.