To form a venture is, quite literally, to go on an adventure. The words have the same Latin root, meaning to head toward what is to come.
On Friday, a trio of Penn Engineering startups demonstrated their aptitude for navigating the unknown by taking home more than $100,000 at the annual Venture Lab Startup Challenge.
Building the Future of Caregiving
Sync Labs, whose AI assistant, Alice, is enhancing caregiving for seniors, claimed the Richard and Ellen Perlman Grand Prize, worth $50,000, as well as three other awards, each worth $10,000: The Jacobson Social Impact Prize, a Khan Family AI for Business Award and the Frederick H. Gloeckner Undergraduate Award.
Founded by Melanie Herbert (EE’25, GEN’26), the team also includes Nami Lindquist (M&T’25) and Alexandra Popescu (EE’25).
Nicholas McGill-Gardner, a lecturer in ESE, advised the group during their journey through Penn Engineering’s annual Senior Design competition, which is run by Jan Van Der Spiegel, Professor in Electrical and Systems Engineering (ESE), and Sid Deliwala, Alfred Moore Senior Fellow and ESE’s Director of Lab Programs.
In addition to Senior Design, Sync Labs also participated in VIP-X, Venture Lab’s three-month startup accelerator, guided by John Ondik (WG’94), and won the 2025 President’s Innovation Prize, for which they were advised by Jeffrey Babin, Professor of Practice and Associate Director of Penn Engineering Entrepreneurship (EENT).