Mokhtarzada Hatchery Program Announces Teams for 2024-2025 Academic Year  

The Mokhtarzada Hatchery Program at the University of Maryland's Department of Computer Science has selected the student teams for the 2024-2025 academic year. Now in its fourth year, the program is designed to support students in launching startups and provides annual funding of up to $10,000 per team.

The Hatchery provides selected teams with resources to help them progress from idea to implementation. In addition to funding, teams will have access to shared workspaces at the Brendan Iribe Center for Computer Science and Engineering and will be paired with mentors, typically experienced entrepreneurs or professionals with relevant industry experience.

Funded by UMD alumni and sibling entrepreneurs Haroon, Idris and Zeki Mokhtarzada, the program aims to foster innovation and business acumen among aspiring student entrepreneurs. This year’s cohort includes four teams working on diverse technological solutions.

The 2024-25 start-ups include:

Axal: A platform designed to streamline the process of understanding legacy codebases. Axal uses AI to generate architecture diagrams, flow graphs, exploratory tests and user stories to help developers grasp entire codebases quickly. The initial product offering is aimed at speeding up legacy modernization projects. Axal’s team is led by Samai Patel (B.S. ’25, computer science), Nand Vinchhi (B.S. ’27, computer science), and Veer Gadodia, an MIT student (B.S. ’24, computer science).

Engauge: A tool designed to address communication gaps in large lecture halls. According to the team’s research, 70% of students hesitate to participate in class, leaving professors with limited real-time feedback. Engauge aims to bridge this gap by providing students and instructors with AI-driven feedback mechanisms and post-lecture insights. The team is comprised of Rodrigo Sandon (B.S. ’24, computer science) and alum Marie Brodsky (B.S. ’24, mathematics).

Saved: A platform that enables Twitch streamers to repurpose their content for short-form platforms. Using an emotion recognition machine learning model and Twitch-specific metrics, Saved identifies engaging moments in live streams and converts them into ready-to-post content for platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube Shorts. The team, composed of Aayush Gupta (B.S. ’25, computer science), Akash Moorching (B.S. ’26, computer science) and Aaron Chen (B.S. ’28, marketing), aims to simplify the content creation process for streamers.

Whitebox: A data-cleaning automation tool targeted at biotech companies. Whitebox's AI-powered solution addresses costly and time-consuming data cleaning processes in drug development. The startup's goal is to reduce human errors and expedite the development of new drugs. The team includes Michael Ilie (B.S. ’27, computer science) and Arav Kumar, a Northeastern University student (B.S. ’27, computer science; finance).

Teams will present their progress at the Hatchery’s annual showcase event at the end of the academic year. The event allows the teams to demonstrate their innovative and polished start-ups to the university community.

—Story by Samuel Malede Zewdu, CS Communications