2022 Winners

FIRST PRIZE

Cosmosii / Emma Kaye, M.B.A ’22

Cosmosii is  helping costume creators unlock their potential in a community they love: cosplay

2021 Winners

FIRST PRIZE

Rivet / Anj Faymei, BS Chemical Engineering ’20, Mojo Oke, BS Mechanical Engineering ’22, and Korede Aderele

Rivet empowers musicians and creators to build and scale one-to-one relationships with their superfans and provides the most effective monetization platform

2020 Winners

FIRST PRIZE

Elements / Michael Stradley, SMArchS ‘20, and Maria Esteban Casanas, SMArchS ‘20

Elements produces individual art making kits to promote creative thinking

SECOND PRIZE

Rarify

Rarify is an online platform that uses big data to assess and market classic furniture pieces

THIRD PRIZE

Material Futures Lab

Material Futures Lab uses biology to produce environmentally friendly pigments

2019 Winners

FIRST PRIZE

Teach To Learn / team lead, Mark Adams
Teach To Learn is a free online cultural-exchange and mentorship service that supports musicians in resource-poor countries by connecting them to mentors in the United States using live video and e-learning platforms.

SECOND PRIZE

Sky International Music Education / team lead, Guo Zhang
Sky International Music Education aims to bring high-quality music education resources to China. They hire young professional musicians to provide online live, interactive video lessons through their application as well as use artificial intelligence to customize and visualize the learning process.

THIRD PRIZE

ArtNext / team lead, Maria Esteban Casanas
ArtNext turns your home into a gallery experience. They provide curated art as a subscription model and at-home curatorial services, making use of gallery and museum collection holdings.

AUDIENCE CHOICE

Along Fault Lines / team lead, Antonio Moya-Latorre
Along Fault Lines is a platform that sparks emotional recovery among populations dealing with urban trauma, such as natural disasters or social conflicts, through artist residency programs that enhance cultural exchange.

2018 Winners

FIRST PRIZE

Project Daredevil (Hapticomix) / 
team lead, Daniel Levine
Hapticomix makes VR for the blind using 3D radio-dramas with motion simulation via a worn vestibular-affecting device.

SECOND PRIZE

Spaceus
 / team lead, Ellen Shakespear
Spaceus transforms vacant storefronts into artist studios, enlivening streets and fostering connections between creatives and neighbors.

THIRD PRIZE

Helm / team lead, Mitchell Gu Helm
A wearable low-cost and easy to use 3D scanner that preserves large scale artworks by taking snapshots of our world.

AUDIENCE CHOICE AWARD

Piccles
 / team lead, Shakti Shaligram
Piccles is a collaborative coloring application that lowers anxiety, relieves boredom, and fosters connection by engaging people in the cathartic act of coloring.

2017 Winners

FIRST PRIZE

Roots Studio
 
Roots Studio allows craft communities to thrive and survive in this new, globalized world.
 
They believe that traditional art is special, unique, and worth holding onto. There are hundreds of thousands of niche traditional art forms around the world — especially India — that are slowly dying out with each generation.
 
Roots Studio is building towards a world in which artists have the ability to financially support their families by sharing their culture and traditions in a new and innovative way.
 
They use technology to connect Indian artists from rural villages to the world. Roots Studio has pioneered a digitization process where each village is connected to the larger world — they have learned how to scan in their artwork, upload corrections and edits to the studio’s proprietary site, and sell their pieces to a global community.

2016 Winners

FIRST PRIZE

Tekuma’s mission is to display millions of artworks in physical spaces and activate generic spaces with unique art by emerging artists.

Tekuma curates and stages Airbnbs with art, providing a cost effective way to improve the aesthetics and rental appeal of space, allowing Airbnb hosts to capture higher revenue through more bookings and better ratings. The platform is a one-stop shop for online art curation and distribution.

Founders:
Marwan Aboudib, SM ’15 (Real Estate Development), MArch ’15 (Architecture)
Kun Qian, SM ’15 (Real Estate Development), MArch ’16 (Architecture)

2014 Winners

FIRST PRIZE

TapTape (formerly SoundSpark)
A music crowd-funding site that works with labels, allowing fans to co­-invest in an artist’s record deal and receive a share of revenues. By working with the world’s most influential labels, TapTape allows fans to connect with label-curated artists before they blow up.

2013 Winners

FIRST PRIZE

Depict.com (formerly Mediuum)
An online platform that helps people discover, display, and enjoy art digitally by bringing new art to any wifi-enabled device with a screen. The team of MIT graduate students, computer programmers, and artists was awarded $10,000 for the best arts-focused business plan.

“Coming from MIT, the prize establishes our company at the intersection of art and technology.” -Kim Gordon of Depict.com

The Depict.com team includes:

Shambhavi Kadam: MIT (B.S. Aerospace Engineering ’06), MIT Sloan (MBA ’12)

Kimberly Gordon: Columbia (B.A. East Asian Studies & Chinese Literature ’08), MIT Sloan (MBA ’13)