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2025 Winners

Congratulations to the Winners of The 3rd Annual MIT Female Founders Pitch Competition:

 

First Place Winner

Erin Dawicki  |  Co-Founder & CEO of LymeAlert

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Runner Up

Samira Kiani  |  Co-founder & COO of Hexem Bio

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Audience Choice Award Claire

Anisha Quadir  |  Co-founder & CEO of livvi

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Wishing each of them continued success in their endeavors!

First Place Winner
Erin Dawicki.jpg
Erin
Dawicki

Co-Founder & CEO | LymeAlert
Crushing Lyme Disease One Tick at a Time

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MIT Sloan SFMBA 2024

LymeAlert is the first truly at-home tick testing kit for Lyme and other tick-borne diseases. Our all-in-one test kit allows you to test a tick anywhere, anytime and know in less than 20 minutes if your tick carries disease or not. It's simple. Find a tick, place it into our crushing device and crush it! Insert the test strip that works just like a Covid test. Scan the results with our app and this will tell you if your tick carries disease or not and what steps you should take next. Knowing you've been exposed to Lyme allows you to get rapid treatment that prevents disease.  The results data will allow us to create hot spot maps, and our AI will predict where tick diseases are spreading next allowing us to help with disease prevention. Ticks suck. Crush them with LymeAlert.

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Runner Up
Samira Kiani.jpg
Samira
Kiani

Co-founder & COO | HexemBio

Reverse Aging with Advance Stem Cell Therapies

MIT Synthetic Biology Center PostDoc 2012-2015

HeXem Bio is pioneering cell and blood rejuvenation therapeutics to combat aging and disease. Our platform harnesses cutting-edge gene circuits and regenerative medicine to restore cellular function, extend healthspan, and unlock new frontiers in longevity science. With innovations published in Nature and deep expertise in synthetic biology, we develop fast, scalable solutions for reversing aging at the cellular level. Backed by top investors and scientific leaders, HeXem Bio is accelerating the future of regenerative therapeutics.

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Audience Choice Award
Anisha Quadir.jpg
Anisha
Quadir

Co-founder & CEO | livvi
The IRL Female Super Connector

MIT Sloan MBA 2023

Livvi is a platform connecting women IRL in a way they actually prefer: through small, compatible group matches. Its algorithm matches women into groups of 5-8 & its concierge recommends places to meet based on the group’s preferences, schedules & locations. Female friendships are essential for women’s health, career mobility, and happiness, yet 42% of adults struggle to make friends. Founders Anisha and Madeleine met at MIT and saw a gap in the market addressing the loneliness epidemic—most solutions focus on events, not meaningful connections. Livvi flips the script by finding women compatible matches first, understanding that women aren’t just looking for places to go—they are looking for the right people to go WITH. After their pitch went viral on TikTok and Instagram with over 1M views, demand skyrocketed from women around the world. They're now expanding into new cities to help women live healthier and happier lives together.

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2025 GLAM4GOOD Social Good Grants Winners

Birth by Us

Mercy Oladipo, co-founder of Birth By Us: 'The all-in-one pregnancy and postpartum app for families of color

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Givtra

Janet Liu and Melinda Liu, founders of Givtra: 'Smarter Giving, Greater Good'

Birth by Us
Birth By Us.png
Mercy
Oladipo

Co-Founder | Birth by UsThe all-in-one Pregnancy and Postpartum app for Families of Color

MIT Course 6-7, Class of 2023

Birth By Us, the pregnancy & postpartum app for families of color, leverages AI and data analytics to holistically guide parents through their happiest and healthiest birthing journey – all while learning from users’ experiences to give providers and hospital systems the feedback and tools they need to improve care. With BBU, parents gain more than just an app—they find a community that reminds them they’re not alone in this journey. By answering just a few quick questions each day, they get real-time insights into their health, helping them recognize potential concerns early and giving them the language to advocate for themselves in medical settings. And when they need support, BBU goes beyond information, directly connecting them to culturally competent providers, trusted resources, and local organizations that are ready to help before, during, and after birth.

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Givtra
Janet_Melinda_Photo.jpg
Janet Liu &
Melinda Liu

Founders | Giver

Smarter Giving, Greater Good

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MIT Course 6-14 and 15-3 Class of 2026

HeXem Bio is pioneering cell and blood rejuvenation therapeutics to combat aging and disease. Our platform harnesses cutting-edge gene circuits and regenerative medicine to restore cellular function, extend healthspan, and unlock new frontiers in longevity science. With innovations published in Nature and deep expertise in synthetic biology, we devNonprofit fundraising staff spend hundreds of hours on manual prospect research, while corporate giving teams struggle to efficiently select and vet worthy organizations. Givtra bridges this gap with our two-sided AI-powered marketplace, transforming nonprofit fundraising and corporate giving through four integrated modules: GivaSearch automates prospecting and proposal writing, GivaVerify ensures compliance, GivaConnect unlocks donor networks, and GivaTrack manages relationships. By accelerating funding matches and eliminating inefficiencies, Givtra turns charitable giving into strategic, data-driven partnerships. Our dual revenue model combines flexible subscriptions with success-based transaction fees, aligning our growth with our users' impact.

Founded by MIT CS & Economics undergraduates with firsthand nonprofit experience, Givtra addresses the $34.5B inefficiency problem in charitable giving. With 50 organizations on our waitlist and validation from 25+ corporate giving professionals, we're creating a world of smarter giving where organizations secure funding faster and drive greater impact.elop fast, scalable solutions for reversing aging at the cellular level. Backed by top investors and scientific leaders, HeXem Bio is accelerating the future of regenerative therapeutics.

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