A team of students from the University of Washington took home the top prize in the Hollomon Health Innovation Challenge on Wednesday as the UW swept the 11th annual competition.
CPRight won the $15,000 Holloman Family grand prize as well as the $2,500 Naturacur Wound Healing Best Idea for a Medical Device prize in the student competition.
CPRight is a real-time CPR feedback device that provides data on compression rate and depth to ensure bystanders perform high-quality, life-saving chest compressions during an emergency.
The company was co-developed alongside ReviveHer, the 2025 Best Idea for Patient Safety prize winner.
The team consists of Shubham Bansal, a neuroscience undergraduate student; Deeya Sharma, a graduate student in the UW School of Medicine; Prisha Hemani, a computer science and engineering undergrad; and Atharv Dixit, an engineering undergrad.
The Hollomon Health Innovation Challenge, hosted by the UW’s Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship in the Foster School of Business, gives students the opportunity to create meaningful solutions to big health-related problems. The competition is open to undergrads and grad students at accredited colleges and universities across the Cascadia Corridor — Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and British Columbia, as well as Alaska.
Other prize winners:
$10,000 WRF Capital Second Place Prize:
- TheraT, a drinkable, non-invasive therapy that removes toxins in the gut before they reach the bloodstream, allowing chronic kidney disease patients to lower their reliance on dialysis.
$5,000 Scale LLP Third Place Prize
- LegUp Prosthetics, a low-cost system that uses smartphone-based 3D scanning to enable accurate fitting from home, reducing costs and expanding access to prosthetic care for underserved and rural patients. Developed by a UW team of molecular engineering, bioengineering, biochemistry, and mechanical engineering students. They also won the $2,500 Population Health Initiative Best Idea for Addressing Health Access and Disparities prize for their focus on expanding care to underserved and rural patients through a point-of-care healthcare service.
$2,500 Mindful Therapy Group Best Idea in Digital Health Prize
- ShiftSpark, a workflow-embedded support platform that helps nurses process stress in real time during a shift. Developed by a team of UW public health students who became the first-ever to win the digital health prize in the challenge after also winning the pitch contest as part of the Buerk’s Digital Health Workshop series.
SoundBio Lab Ignite Prize
- TPT-Finder, a handheld, AI-powered surgical tool that helps surgeons instantly distinguish parathyroid tissue during thyroid surgery to prevent costly and life-altering complications. Developed by a UW team of computer science and electrical and computer engineering students. The prize is a six-month membership to the SoundBio Lab biomakerspace in the U-District.
$1,000 Connie Bourassa-Shaw Spark Award
- ColoGuide, an AI-powered colonoscopy navigation system building its proprietary data set to automate scope insertion with real-time visual guidance. Developed by UW Medicine students.
This year’s competition attracted 67 participants, two shy of the record set in 2025. Students represented seven schools in the opening round: UW, UW-Bothell, Edmonds College, UW Global Innovation Exchange, University of Idaho, Portland State University, and Seattle University.
There have been 509 participating teams and more than 1,725 students over the 11 years of the challenge and $424,000 awarded.
