The Event
Student innovators from Pittsburgh area universities developed and presented an impressive array of projects at the 2025 Wireless Innovation SmartTech Hackathon for Accessibility that was held last weekend. The weekend long event brought together 13 interdisciplinary student teams who worked to prototype wireless tech solutions to the real-world challenges identified by the disability community.
Beyond the competition and the lure of cash prizes, participants gained crucial inclusive design experience and a tangible resume boost. A core differentiator of our hackathon was the hands-on mentorship from both tech experts and community members with lived disability experience, ensuring that every project was built with empathy and true utility in mind. The second unique approach for this hackathon was requiring that all teams had both clinical and technology team members thus balancing technical innovation with real-world impact.
The Winners and the Innovations
Our winning team, DevDash, consisted of five outstanding students: Michelle Star, Mingyu Chen, Naman Gupta, Ammulakshmi Madathittayil Sindhu, and Yuvraj Krishnamoorthy, representing three different programs at the University of Pittsburgh. Guided by their disability mentor, Monica Chupko, the team developed Accessiride, an AI-powered innovation that addresses a persistent gap for individuals with disabilities in finding and booking accessible transportation. "I always wanted to do research in human computer interaction," said team member Michelle Star, "And this hackathon helped me to realize that assistive technology is exactly something that fulfills my technical brain, but also my emotional side that wants to help people."
Four exceptional students from Duquesne University: Teresa Steffens, Norah Delaney, Alexis Mulroy, and Riley Davis, made up our second-place winning team, Beasts on the Bluff. Guided by their mentor, Aziza Rodriguez, the team developed Confidose, an innovative solution that enables blind and low-vision users to accurately and safely dispense liquid medications for themselves, their family members, and service animals.
Go Dinos, our third-place and People's Choice Award winning team, included four talented students: Surabhi Raghavan, Rishita Picardo, Charitha Battini, and Spencer Aramburu-Perkins from Information Science, Bioengineering, and Occupational Therapy at the University of Pittsburgh. Guided by their mentor, Jonathan Duvall, the team developed SENSEI, a novel system that provides wheelchair users with obstacle alerts through visual, auditory, or sensory feedback tailored to their accessibility needs.
Sponsors and Support
A very special thanks goes to Brandon Biggs, the CEO of XR Navigation, for delivering an inspiring keynote that set the tone for the event and reminded everyone that many inventions that were originally created as accessibility tools have gone on to change the world for everyone (including OCR, touch screens, captioning, and many more). Student Alexis Mulroy said "I thought his talk was really amazing and made a lot of sense for how you should go about designing things for and working with people with disabilities." We are also especially thankful to all of our event partners including: United Spinal, Foundation Fighting Blindness, and ESC Design Justice MedTech Consulting. This hackathon was led by the Wireless Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center within the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh.
The Wireless RERC, established in October 2021 with support from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR), is housed within the Accessible SmartTech Lab in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Science at the University of Pittsburgh. We collaborate with people with disabilities, providers, and industry to advance access to and effective use of mainstream wireless technologies as assistive technology.
