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President's Innovation Prize

Improving access to at-home health care
Aris Saxena and Yiwen Li

Improving access to at-home health care

With their company Mobility Health, President’s Innovation Prize winners Aris Saxena and Yiwen Li have created a program which connects patients with on-demand health care at their homes.

Dee Patel

From wearable light to tech startup
innovation prize portrait of anthony scarpone

From wearable light to tech startup

Lumify Care, supported by the 2021 President’s Innovation Prize and co-founded by May graduate Anthony Scarpone-Lambert and NICU nurse Jennifferre Mancillas, launched an app in January and expects version 2.0 of its uNight Light later in 2022.

Michele W. Berger

Fighting food waste, one apple at a time

Fighting food waste, one apple at a time

Strella Biotechnology, a company housed in Pennovation and co-founded by then junior Katherine Sizov, a winner of the 2019 President’s Innovation Prize, is working to reduce food waste using biosensors to monitor ethylene, a natural gas that ripens fruits and vegetables. “If we don’t solve this food waste problem now, it will become a lot more expensive later,” Sizov said. “As our climate becomes more volatile, this is going to crop up more and more.”

Connecting health care with patients in need
Portrait of the two students standing on Penn campus

Aris Saxena(left) and Yiwen Li(right) won the 2021 President’s Innovation Prize.

Connecting health care with patients in need

As part of their President’s Innovation Prize project, seniors Aris Saxena and Yiwen Li hope to provide global access to health care with their company, Mobility.

Dee Patel

With its flagship light device, Lumify Care improves patient experience from the frontline
Person in a blue button-down shirt, arms crossed, leaning against a tree outside. In the background are blurred out bushes and trees, a path and a streetlight.

The School of Nursing’s Anthony Scarpone-Lambert of Chalfont, Pennsylvania, earned a 2021 President’s Innovation Prize for Lumify Care. The company’s first product, uNight Light, is a battery-powered, hands-free light device that magnetically clips onto scrubs, has three modes, and is easily cleanable with hospital-grade disinfectant wipes. It offers nurses an alternative to turning on overhead lights overnight, helping patients rest and making a hospital stay more conducive to healing.

With its flagship light device, Lumify Care improves patient experience from the frontline

Penn Nursing senior Anthony Scarpone-Lambert earned a 2021 President’s Innovation Prize for his company and its first trio of products: uNight Light, the Sleep-First Education Initiative, and the uNightShift Community.

Michele W. Berger

Strella Biotechnology tackles food waste by ‘hacking the fruit’
strella biotech team members working in the lab

Strella Biotechnology tackles food waste by ‘hacking the fruit’

President’s Innovation Prize awardees Katherine Sizov and Malika Shukurova are expanding their startup and confronting $1 trillion of food waste with their novel biosensing technology.

Erica K. Brockmeier