Ten Regional Innovators Awarded Funding Through the KCV IMPACT Competition

Kentucky Commercialization Ventures is pleased to announce the 2026 winners of the IMPACT Competition. 

The goal of the competition is to encourage ideation relevant to the improvement of the social, health, or economic conditions and highlight the value of innovators from across the state of Kentucky. Winners receive up to $25,000 for their institution to bring their innovations to life. The IMPACT Competition is supported by the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development.

Learn more about the winners and their innovative projects below.

Meet the 2026 IMPACT Award Winners

First Place Winner - $25,000

Tathagata Ray

Institution: Morehead State University

Collaborators: Dr. Krishna Sai Vutukuru

Braced Foundation System for Mobile Homes

Read more about the winning innovation.

Mobile and manufactured homes (MMH) are susceptible to wind drag and toppling. The problem is addressed by helical augers and metal straps. Being inside the soil, they are susceptible to corrosion within 5 years. The straps remain inactive in compression. Prolonged tension in the straps can lead to relaxation, resulting in loss of strength. A conventional pier-pad concrete foundation will be costly. Hence, a novel foundation consisting of two concrete slabs and steel braces, where (1) an innovative force transfer mechanism reduces the required concrete volume and soil stresses, (2) the soil and concrete weights counteract the uplift, and (3) a grout cover that protects the steel, can be beneficial.

The vertical and lateral forces are transmitted through slotted and pinned connections, thereby minimizing soil stress. The proposed foundation will have (i) 60% less concrete than the traditional pier and pad-based footings for similar loadings, including uplift, and (ii) have more uplift capacity than at least three strap-auger systems of similar depth.

The proposed foundation can be prefabricated and installed without any expert workmanship. (1) The bottom slab and the braces should be placed after earth excavation. (2) The bolts for the slotted holes should be connected to the top of the braces. (3) The excavation should be filled and compacted, leaving the bolts for the slotted holes exposed. (4) The top slab should be placed by matching the slots. For existing MMHs or site-built houses, the footing can be installed using similar construction steps without moving the unit.

Runners-Up - $15,000 Each

Jake Hildebrant

Institution: Murray State University

Thermoelectric Heat Recovery Generator (THRG)

Read more about the winning innovation.

The proposed concept is a thermoelectric heat recovery generator (THRG) designed to capture waste heat from high-temperature environments such as data centers and convert it directly into usable electrical energy. The system uses thermoelectric generator (TEG) modules that operate based on the Seebeck effect, where a temperature difference across a material produces a voltage. In this design, TEG modules are mounted to a thermally conductive pipe—such as copper or another high-conductivity material—that serves as the heat transfer medium.

Heated fluids from a waste heat source, such as the heated water from a data center’s server cooling system, flow through the pipe, creating a constant heating source for the hot junction of the TEG’s. Cooled fluids from the cooling systems are diverted through a smaller pipe wrapped around the cold junction of the TEG’s, creating a constant maximum differential temperature. This temperature gradient allows the TEG modules to generate electrical power without any moving parts, utilizing the law of dissimilar metals, or the Seebeck effect. The produced electricity can then be used locally to offset power consumption, charge batteries, or supply low-power systems such as sensors or monitoring equipment.

A key application for this technology is in server rooms and data centers, but it has potential applications not only in data centers but also in industrial exhaust systems, thermal power plants, manufacturing processes, residential tankless water heating, and other environments where waste heat is abundant but underutilized.

Arnold Katende

Institution: Kentucky State University

Collaborators: Alhagie Cham; Lynsey Crumbie; Kelly Rawalt; Changó Gardens

Empowering Kentucky Communities Through Urban Aquaponics and Hydroponics Education

Read more about the winning innovation.

Kentucky State University Cooperative Extension in collaboration with Changó Gardens, proposes the Community Aquaponics and Hydroponics Education Project to transform urban food access in Louisville, Kentucky. Our project establishes demonstration and training systems that teach sustainable, soil-less food production methods to residents, schools, and community organizations. Through hands-on workshops, digital curriculum, and take-home hydroponic systems, we aim to empower participants with practical skills and knowledge to grow fresh produce year-round in limited spaces.

The project builds local capacity in controlled environment agriculture by integrating research-based practices, technical mentorship, and community participation. Participants that complete the program will receive small hydroponic systems for home-based application, fostering adoption of innovative growing methods and strengthening urban food security. By creating replicable, scalable systems, the project not only improves local access to fresh, nutritious produce but also demonstrates a model for other Kentucky communities facing similar barriers.

Our initiative leverages existing urban farm infrastructure, regional partnerships, and expertise in horticulture to deliver sustainable education and measurable impact. This project aligns with broader goals of environmental stewardship, food equity, and economic development by equipping community members with knowledge, resources, and confidence to participate in the urban agriculture economy. Ultimately, our work will create a lasting framework for controlled environment agriculture in Kentucky, providing a blueprint for replication and commercialization of community-focused aquaponic and hydroponic systems.

Nischal Sapkota

Institution: Kentucky State University

Collaborators: Dr. Manisha Parajuli

AI-Forester: A Smart App to Help Kentucky Woodland Owners Identify Trees and Manage Their Forests

Read more about the winning innovation.

A single white oak tree can be worth over a thousand dollars, yet many of Kentucky's 135,000 forest landowning families lack accessible tools to identify valuable species such as white oak and understand their market potential. Although landowners possess substantial knowledge about their forests, that knowledge is often not transferred to the next generation. As heirs become less connected to family forest operations, they may inherit land with limited understanding of species composition, timber value, or management options. This creates a growing challenge for sustainable forest management and informed timber decision-making.

AI-Forester addresses this gap by putting the knowledge of a professional forester into every woodland owner's pocket. Using a smartphone app, a landowner photographs a tree's leaves, bark, or canopy, and the app's artificial intelligence instantly identifies the species from among the 15–20 most commercially important Kentucky hardwoods. But AI-Forester does not stop at identification. It tells the landowner whether the tree is commercially valuable, its timber value class, which pests or diseases threaten it, how to manage the stand around it, and when to call a professional forester for help.

The app also includes a photo-based forest inventory tool that gives landowners a basic "health check" of their woods, estimated basal area, and trees per acre, without any professional equipment.

Deep learning and UAV-based forest assessment provide the technical foundation for AI-Forester. The app will be distributed through collaboration with state forest agencies and the Cooperative Extension Service to reach the families who need it most.

Runners-Up - $10,000 Each

Jason Marion

Institution: Eastern Kentucky University

EquiFlow: Novel 8-Channel Disposable Pipette Manifold

Read more about the winning innovation.

The proposed multichannel transfer pipette manifold would interface with a standard syringe to offer a practical, low-cost alternative to traditional multichannel pipettes while improving performance over bulb-based systems that dispense liquids into well plates. By using a syringe as the driving mechanism, the system would deliver consistent volumes through mechanically constrained channels, eliminating variability and errors commonly associated with bulb transfer pipettes, especially multichannel versions that lack measurement. The device production would be scalable for applications needing to dispense liquids or microbial cultures in 96-well plates used in life sciences applications.

The device would represent a considerable improvement over disposable transfer pipette devices that have substantial channel-to-channel variability, a frequent limitation of bulb-driven systems where uneven pressure from inconsistent squeezing results in differences in volumes dispensed per tip or channel. With a properly designed manifold focused on equalization of liquid being dispensed, each outlet experiences the same pressure from the syringe containing a fixed volume, thus improving reproducibility and marketability.

The product aims to offer an accurate and affordable option for multichannel pipetting. The product would present opportunities for molecular biology kit makers seeking to provide a kit-based solution that removes pipette tips and any lab requirement of an expensive multichannel pipette. The targeted users and beneficiaries of this product would find these devices make liquid dispensing easier and more reliable. Beneficiaries would be users in teaching labs, field settings, and resource-limited environments.

Overall, these pipetting manifolds would improve accuracy, lower costs, and be an alternative for multichannel liquid transfer.

Caleb Morris

Institution: Murray State University

A Novel Portable Mass Spectrometer for Improved Mass Range, Resolution, and Power Consumption

Read more about the winning innovation.

Portable mass spectrometry instruments are applicable to a wide range of fields such as emergency services, environmental monitoring, and health care diagnostics. This is due to their rapid, direct analysis of samples on-site for immediate results in dynamic environments. Unfortunately, portable designs face many challenging requirements from small footprints to low power consumption. The small footprint required for portable designs results in limited mass range and resolution of the instrument. Mass range limits the variety of chemicals you can observe, limiting what you can monitor, track, or identify. Limited resolution risks false positives, resulting in identifying something as dangerous when it is benign. We all want to avoid Grandma’s lotion erroneously showing it contains explosives. Additionally, battery life is a concern. Power consumption in traditional designs arise in part from complex electronics required to supply high frequency at high voltage. This limits device usage time. I have developed a design that is based on direct current. It does not require high voltage at high frequency, reducing power consumption. In addition, it shows a higher mass range and resolution than typical portable designs, increasing identified compounds while limiting false positives. Currently, the device has been simulated in SIMION software, which is the gold standard software used for mass spectrometry design and used in peer-reviewed publications to demonstrate proof-of-concept. Future work involves protecting this design, establishing close collaboration with KCV for mentorship, and building the device to optimize design constraints, such as footprint and user interface.

Anindita Paul

Institution: Morehead State University

AI-Driven Adaptive Semiconductor Fabrication Platform for Ultra-Low-Power Healthcare IoT Chips

Read more about the winning innovation.

Personalized healthcare fosters deeper connections between patients and healthcare providers despite challenges in the affordability of medical care and the scarcity of clinicians. It offers transformative benefits through a proactive approach, improving clinical outcomes, enhancing quality of life, and reducing healthcare costs.  This research aims to address fundamental bottlenecks such as power consumption, compactness, and performance in the future of personalized continuous healthcare. The life of wearable and implantable Internet of Things (IoT) devices needed for continuous monitoring of vital signs, predicting health events, and delivering therapies in real-time is currently limited by battery life and the energy efficiency of their core silicon chips.

Instead of following a single static chip design process, the proposed Artificial Intelligence (AI)-Driven Semiconductor Fabrication Platform dynamically simulates and optimizes the fabrication process itself for specific ultra-low-power applications. It uses AI to co-optimize chip design and its virtual fabrication process, simultaneously representing a paradigm shift and benefiting the $500 billion valued IoT healthcare market.   It can tailor transistor characteristics, circuit layouts, and material properties at a granular level to achieve the absolute minimum power draw,  high input impedance (>GΩ) to detect microvolt-level signals, and high common-mode rejection-ratio (CMRR >100dB) to reject motion artifacts and noise with minimum footprint for a given set of functions, whether it's for an analog front-end of an ECG or a continuous glucose monitor.

This research’s key advantage is that it enables exploration of thousands of design and process variations without the colossal cost and time required for physical fabrication runs.

Runners-Up - $5,000 Each

Patrick Erbland

Institution: Kentucky State University

Collaborators: Dr. Clifton Wise; Janelle Hager; David Neville

SolarChill: Off-grid Cold Storage

Read more about the winning innovation.

On-farm cold storage is essential for maintaining produce quality and extending the marketable shelf life of agricultural products in Kentucky. However, traditional cold-storage systems are costly to construct and expensive to operate due to high energy demands. While technology such as CoolBot has enabled farmers to build lower-cost cold storage using insulated rooms and window air-conditioning units, these systems remain grid-dependent and lack energy intelligence.

This project proposes the development of SolarChill, an advanced, low-cost, off-grid cold-storage control system that integrates solar power, battery storage, and smart temperature management. Kentucky State University (KSU) faculty, staff, and students will design a proprietary, sensor-driven controller that dynamically manages cooling based on real-time inputs including outside temperature, solar generation, battery charge level, and internal storage temperature.

Rather than maintaining a single fixed temperature, SolarChill allows users to define an acceptable temperature range. When solar energy is abundant, the system cools aggressively to the lower end of the range, storing “thermal energy” in the product and storage space. During low solar production periods, the controller conserves battery power by maintaining temperatures within safe upper thresholds rather than forcing unnecessary cooling.

A pilot-scale SolarChill unit will be installed and evaluated at Capstone Farms in Henry County, Kentucky and operated over three growing seasons. Performance data will inform future work in the development of a predictive control algorithm that incorporates weather forecasts, thermal mass, and crop-specific storage needs. This project aims to deliver an affordable, scalable, and energy-efficient cold-storage solution tailored to Kentucky’s diverse farming conditions.

Boshra Karimi

Institution: Northern Kentucky University

Sustainable Demolition & Material Recovery Marketplace

Read more about the winning innovation.

The construction and demolition (C&D) industry generates a substantial amount of waste each year, with construction and demolition waste accounting for about 40% of the total solid waste stream in the U.S. Much of this material—such as wood, brick, steel, and fixtures—is discarded despite retaining significant economic and structural value. This inefficiency is largely due to the lack of a streamlined system that connects demolition contractors, who supply these materials, with potential buyers seeking cost-effective and sustainable alternatives.

To address this gap, this project proposes the development of a Sustainable Demolition & Material Recovery Marketplace, a digital platform designed to facilitate the exchange of reclaimed building materials. The platform will enable demolition contractors to list salvaged materials with detailed descriptions, quantities, and images, while allowing buyers—including contractors, developers, architects, and homeowners—to easily search, purchase, and arrange delivery.

Key features include location-based matching, logistics coordination, and environmental impact tracking to quantify waste diversion. By focusing specifically on construction and demolition materials, the platform offers a targeted solution that improves transparency, reduces disposal costs, and lowers material expenses.

This initiative supports the transition toward a circular construction economy, reducing landfill waste, decreasing demand for virgin materials, and lowering carbon emissions. At the same time, it creates new revenue streams for contractors and increases access to affordable materials. By combining economic and environmental benefits, this marketplace has the potential to transform material recovery practices and promote sustainable development within Kentucky and beyond.

Qian Xiao

Institution: Eastern Kentucky University

Collaborators: Winston X. Zhuang

K-Care: A Community-Powered Safety Net for People Living Alone in Kentucky

Read more about the winning innovation.

K-Care is a wellness/safety app designed for elderly individuals, college students studying abroad, people living alone, and anyone who wants peace of mind for their family and local community.

The core of this app is a simple, customizable, and nearly effortless daily check-in system. Every day, the app performs an automatic check-in triggered by the user's first phone activity, requiring zero extra effort or disruption to daily life. To make daily check-ins feel warm rather than clinical, a manual check-in option is also available, gamified through a virtual garden where users grow plants or raise a companion animal, building a healthy daily habit through positive reinforcement. For users who prefer a direct prompt, a simple lock screen notification offers a green "I'm OK." If a check-in goes unanswered through any of these methods, the app follows a thoughtful and gradual escalation system, becoming serious only after 48 hours of silence, avoiding unnecessary panic over a missed notification.

The app is deeply customizable. Users can set quiet hours, travel mode, different check-in schedules, and even a "Don't check on me" mode for intentional downtime. An optional safety profile stores last known location, battery level, last activity timestamp, and a personal message, such as "If this triggers, check my apartment," giving emergency contacts exactly what they need, when they need it.

For life's most important moments, K-Care includes a Dead Man's Vault, a secure, time-released repository for wills, instructions, personal messages, and vital documents, only unlocked when the escalation threshold is reached.

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If you'd like to learn more about these innovators or their technologies, please reach out to KCV@kstc.com.

Learn More About the KCV IMPACT Competition