Team Pawva Refines Smart Pet Bed Pitch to Win $50K Idea Challenge
Image by Ed Brennen
04/23/2025
By Ed Brennen
As every entrepreneur knows, setbacks are part of the journey.
When juniors Tanish Araveti, Owen O鈥橞rien and Jiya Panchal, aka Team Pawva, entered their Smart Pet Bed in the Rist DifferenceMaker Institute鈥檚 Francis College of Engineering Prototyping competition last fall, they failed to make it past the preliminary round.
鈥淲e weren鈥檛 fully prepared to explain what we were doing,鈥� said Panchal, a computer science major from Nashua, New Hampshire.
But they didn鈥檛 give up.
鈥淲e met up almost every night to iterate on our product, work on our presentation and build our self-confidence as a team,鈥� said Araveti, a mechanical engineering major from Chelmsford, Massachusetts.
Just four months later, they were back for DifferenceMaker鈥檚 13th annual $50,000 Idea Challenge at University Crossing. This time, they took the top prize: the $6,000 Rist Campus-Wide DifferenceMaker award.
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Ten teams emerged from the previous week鈥檚 preliminary round to pitch their projects to a panel of Idea Challenge judges: Brian Rist 鈥�77, 鈥�22, 鈥�22 (H), Lorna Boucher 鈥�86, David Laurello 鈥�81, 鈥�88, 鈥�88 and Joy Tong 鈥�14 (H).
鈥淓very time I come here for this, I am more impressed with the quality and the professionalism of the presentations,鈥� said Rist, the program鈥檚 namesake who, along with his wife Kim 鈥�22 (H), has been a longtime DifferenceMaker supporter.听
This year鈥檚 Idea Challenge was sponsored by听the Joseph P. Donahue Charitable Foundation, which made a $25,000 contribution.听听
MBA student Madhavi Tarugu won the $4,000 Jack M. Wilson First to Market award for Core Advantage SAT Prep, a comprehensive program designed to help high school students improve their SAT scores. Tarugu is the founding director of the Shine In Math Academy in Burlington, Massachusetts.
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Bear Hugs, a glove that delivers pulsing vibrations and cooling and heating to help calm an anxious child, won the $4,000 Contribution to a Healthier Lifestyle award, sponsored by AIRS American Infrared Solutions and engineering alum Dan Manitakos 鈥�80.
Sophomore electrical engineering majors Aidan McGrail and Dilon Costa and sophomore business major Amanda Pajak, who made up the Bear Hugs team, were classmates at Blackstone Valley Regional Vocational Technical High School. They all have personal connections to people with anxiety disorders, and they decided to devise their solution after hearing about the DifferenceMaker program during their first year at UML.
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The $4,000 Significant Social Impact award, sponsored by Enterprise Bank, went to the SenseMakers team of Manning School of Business Ph.D. students Cintya Gajardo V茅jar, Oscar Aliaga and Bruce Lezana for their educational app iLearn. Designed to initially launch in the students鈥� native country of Chile, the AI-powered app would provide personalized tutoring for children and would support parents who want to help with homework.
Five teams received $2,000 seed fund awards, funded in part by Chancellor Emerita听Jacqueline Moloney 鈥�75, 鈥�92 and her husband Ed:
- AgentX, an AI-driven app to help international students navigate resources for scholarships, internships, health insurance and more (junior computer science major Enea Nushi);
- Comprehension Clicker,听 a wireless, handheld device that students can use to provide real-time learning feedback in the classroom (sophomore computer science and electrical engineering major Jetrin Orenberg);
- Fridgie, an app designed to reduce food waste by tracking expiration dates on grocery items (senior computer science majors John Brann, Danny Machado, Noah Rothgaber and Will Susi);
- Shay G. Productions, a food truck festival and fair to support Caribbean immigrants and businesses (doctor of physical therapy candidate Shaina Gedeon, public health doctoral student Chandni Shahdev, sophomore business major Jay Satrola and junior business major Serena Williams); and
- myHub, an app for job-seekers to build their personal brand (sophomore business major Alex Donnelly).
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Team Pawva鈥檚 winning Smart Pet Bed uses sensors beneath the cushion to track a dog or cat鈥檚 weight, body temperature and sleep patterns. The data is uploaded to an app that the owner can share with a veterinarian.
Tong isn鈥檛 a pet owner, but she can see the smart bed鈥檚 potential in the $10 billion global pet tech industry.
鈥淭here鈥檚 a lot of stuff they have to work out, but it is a great idea that a lot of pet owners would love to have,鈥� said Tong, who, along with her husband, industrial management alum John Pulichino 鈥�67, 鈥�14 (H), owns and operates Group III International, a Florida-based global travel goods company.听
Image by Ed Brennen
鈥淲e wanted to gain the experience of starting a business in real life, and (DifferenceMaker) was perfect for that,鈥� said Panchal, who noted that the team took advantage of the program鈥檚 workshops and the guidance of DifferenceMaker Fellow David Vatalaro.
All of the finalists now have the opportunity to continue honing their ideas at the DifferenceMaker Summer Boot Camp. The winning teams also have access to $15,000 of in-kind legal services, provided by corporate sponsor Foley & Lardner LLP, where engineering alum Chris McKenna 鈥�89 is office managing partner.
鈥淚鈥檓 so excited for the boot camp,鈥� Panchal said. 鈥淚 can鈥檛 wait.鈥�
鈥淚t鈥檚 going to be a fun summer,鈥� added O鈥橞rien.