Two teams led by Carle Illinois College of Medicine physician-innovators will advance to the final round of the 2025 Cozad New Venture Challenge. Teams Sprout and VOCA Health were selected by a group of judges to pitch their innovations aimed at advancing health care for two often-overlooked patient populations: children with congenital heart defects and people recovering from voice disorders.
With more than $500,000 in development support on the line, CI MED’s finalists will compete with four other teams from across the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus when they present their concepts before a panel of expert judges in Chicago on April 17.
CI MED finalist teams include the following:
Sprout won a place in the finals pitching a first-of-its-kind expandable conduit for use in correcting congenital heart defects in children. Right ventricle outflow tract (RVOT) obstructions block blood flow from the heart’s right ventricle to the pulmonary arteries, usually requiring surgical repair within the first few years of life. Current treatments involve installing tissue grafts from humans, animals, or synthetic conduits to restore proper blood flow. As the patient grows, the conduits that work in infancy can become too small, requiring repeated open-heart surgeries.
Sprout team leader Kellie Cao says her team’s device improves on existing options with a mechanically expandable conduit made of biostable polymers coupled with a stent graft. This new system would allow the conduit to grow with the child, reducing the need for multiple surgeries. “By decreasing the number of open-heart procedures by 75%, Sprout lowers the physical risks associated with surgery, as well as the emotional and financial burden on families,” Cao said. The team is working with an FDA-supported virtual accelerator for pediatric device companies called Southwest Pediatric Device Consortium (SWPDC) which is based at Texas Children’s Hospital. Cao is also presenting the device at the Design for Medical Devices Conference this month. Her teammates include fellow CI MED students Payal Patel, Hannah Jung, and Jared Matzke.
VOCA Health is a platform designed to improve monitoring and outcomes for adults who are affected by voice disorders. Founder Shreya Rangarajan says the innovation represents a shift away from the traditional invasive vocal assessment methods toward a non-invasive, data-driven approach.
VOCA Health incorporates a mobile platform that allows patients to record voice samples from virtually anywhere and upload them to the cloud, where they are analyzed using key objective metrics (e.g., fundamental frequency, pitch, tone, volume, shimmer, and jitter). The results can be shared with health care providers for timely management and monitoring. The team’s prototype integrates advanced algorithms with user-friendly mobile technology, with plans to include iterative feedback. Rangarajan says the app could be particularly important for patients whose vocal health is key to their professional or personal lives, including singers, teachers, performers, and broadcasters. VOCA Health is co-founded by CI MED student Zelda Moran.
Three of the six teams competing in the finals of the Cozad New Venture Challenge are presenting health care solutions. Twenty-eight CI MED-led teams competed in the demo showcase, vying for investment and development support for innovations designed to help patients and revolutionize health care delivery.
This year’s Cozad New Venture Challenge drew entries from 300 teams from across the U. of I. Urbana-Champaign campus. The event is hosted annually by the Technology Entrepreneur Center in The Grainger College of Engineering in collaboration with the Gies College of Business and Carle Illinois College of Medicine. The experiential program fosters entrepreneurial thinking and has supported the launch of sustainable business ventures, awarding over $3.4 million in funding and prizes since 2000.
Editor’s note:
The original article by The Grainger College of Engineering can be found here.
If you’re interested in seeing the top teams pitch, join us on April 17 at 1:30 pm (CDT) in the National Center for Supercomputing Applications Auditorium. Due to limited seating, RSVP is requested for attendance.