Please join us for the final pitch event of the Creative Arts Competition. Months of effort from student teams culminate in this event where five teams present their arts-related ventures to a panel of esteemed adjudicators. Following pitches, while judges deliberate, there will be time for an exciting update from 2022 winner Emma Kaye of Cosmosii, an Audience Q&A with the teams, and refreshments for all attendees. After deliberation, a winning team will be announced and the $15K prize will be awarded. The event will take place at the Innovation Headquarters Hacker Reactor, 7th floor of Building E38.

The teams competing in this year's final pitch event include:

ARTIZEN
Artizen empowers and inspires art discovery through creative communities and innovation. Artizen is an AI algorithm-based marketplace that provides aspiring art owners with step-by-step guidance to artwork discovery, personalized visual curation and validating insights into the world’s emerging artists. Our mission is to create a platform that:​ Creates equal access to art discovery and inspiration for everyone; Helps seasoned art buyers and artistic homeowners source authentic and unique artworks through a customized art buying experience; Empowers young art enthusiasts with the knowledge and aesthetics to discover their unique identities as new art buyers; Enables artists to access Artizen’s marketplace technology and vibrant art buyer community.

The Artizen team include artists and art enthusiasts with diverse expertise and professional backgrounds across engineering, consulting, strategy, product and design​.

EMBRACE
Venture description: Embrace is an interactive storytelling platform to maximize therapy's impact. Our aim is to use art therapy to help patients tell their stories while waiting for their first psychotherapy appointment and jump-start their healing process from their first moment in need.

KINO AI
Kino AI helps filmmakers process and organize their footage. Whether you're a YouTube content creator or a feature film editor, Kino is here to make work faster, easier, and more enjoyable.

Co-founders Wesley Block and Luke Igel are MIT seniors with a unique technical background and a love of film. Combined, they have experience in machine learning research, software engineering, and business development at firms like SpaceX, NASA, Bridgewater, BCG, and multiple startups. They also created a feature-length documentary on the history of MIT, which took the campus by storm and covers over 80 years of the Institute’s storied past through AI-enhanced archival footage.

MONKI TOX
Monki Tox helps Indian children reconnect to their roots by combining culturally-rich Indian stories with contemporary values and presenting them in the form of a web-based radio and books. Our goal is to document fast-fading Indian folklore, expose children to their native languages in their cultural form, and thereby preserve the cultural richness of India. Violence and patriarchal themes that are prevalent in Indian culture are removed and contemporary values are added to our stories to give children a holistic, value-building experience through creative, brain development-enhancing storytelling.

Founder Divya Iyer has 30 years of public speaking and storytelling experience with a rich exposure to Indian culture. As an immigrant from India, she is well aware of the dearth in cultural values that Indian diaspora children face. As a forward-thinker, she focuses strongly on equality and inclusiveness. The team of storytellers are stay-at-home moms trained by the founder, who are using Monki Tox as a platform to make their voices heard.

ONESHOETHREE
Oneshoethree seeks to disrupt standardized sizing in footwear to provide personalized footwear for all, whilst minimizing waste, labor, and material complexity in the manufacturing process. We aim to offer a subscription service with digital sizing and personalization, and convenient, sustainable product disposal. For footwear brands and manufacturers, the process will streamline manufacturing, reducing material purchases and the overall landing cost, as well as offer a pathway to sustainable products. For consumers, oneshoethree will provide affordable, custom tailored shoes, with numerous personalization options.

Oneshoethree is uniquely positioned to take on this challenge with three team members adept at innovating design solutions for wearables. Ganit Goldstein (SMArchs ‘23) is a fashion designer working at the intersection of textiles and digital fabrication/ Thaddeus Lee (MArch ‘22) and Sasha McKinlay (MArch ‘23) are both researchers at the Self Assembly Lab, working on product prototyping and textile research.