Engineering Students Win Big at 2026 New Venture Competition

Team BrickCycle wins first place in the Social Enterprise/Sustainability category.

June 22, 2026 - Engineering students served on many of the winning teams at the annual Stella Zhang New Venture Competition, which is hosted by the UC Irvine Paul Merage School of Business’s Beall Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The event highlights UCI students’ creativity and business skills as they are asked to launch a startup and build a team in just seven months. 

Among the finalists, UCI engineers played integral roles on four teams:

Abner Computing receives second place prize in the Business Products and Services category.

Abner Computing received the $5,000 second place prize in the Business Products and Services category. The startup is a multiprovider artificial intelligence (AI) platform that roots requests across GPU providers based on price, reliability and response time. In effect, this helps enterprises have strong performances at reduced costs by utilizing multiple providers. The team included three biomedical engineering students: Dathan Nguyen, Josh Varela and Lucas Jones.

BrickCycle was awarded the $10,000 first place prize in the Social Enterprise/Sustainability category. The team sought to construct durable, nonfired bricks out of recycled plastic, glass and seashell waste in order to improve insulation and construction efficiency. Mechanical engineering major Jimmy Tran was featured on the team. 

PAQQ LLC earns second place prize in the Consumer Products category for their "smart bag."

PAQQ LLC received the $5,000 second place prize in the Consumer Products category. The startup consists of “smart bags” attached to an app that uses RFID tracking and AI-powered recommendations to help avoid forgetting essentials during travel, work or just everyday life. The team included electrical engineering student Dominic Carone. 

RestWing wins first place prize in the Consumer Products category as well as the Fan Favorite Specialty Award.

RestWing won the $10,000 first place prize in the Consumer Products category as well as the $1,000 Fan Favorite Speciality Award. The team, which includes mechanical engineering students Andrew Le and Anthony Colette, created an ergonomic headrest attachment that clips onto existing headrests and includes adjustable side support in order to improve comfort and reduce neck strain during car rides. 

The Stella Zhang New Venture Competition is open to all UCI students, faculty, staff, researchers and community members and includes over $100,000 in prizes. 

– Grace Hefner

 

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