Spring Awakening: Innovation Takes Center Stage at Demo Day Spring 2025
As the Spring 2025 semester wrapped up, Spark! students proved once again that their learning doesn’t end in the classroom—it accelerates into impact.
This past Friday, the BU Center for Computing & Data Sciences buzzed with energy as students, faculty, staff, and Spark! partners gathered for Demo Day—a staple of the Spring 2025 Experiential Learning Expo.
In true Spark! tradition, the event showcased student-led innovation across real-world projects from the Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences, Cross-College Challenge, and the Learning Assistant Program. Each team brought bold ideas to life, addressing pressing challenges with creative, data-driven solutions.
Winner’s Circle
These projects were selected by an esteemed panel of industry professionals and Demo Day’s audience.
Fitted — Judges’ Choice Award
Fitted is a fashion-focused social networking app that celebrates self-expression and builds community through style. Designed for Gen Z users, Fitted lets you share daily photos of your outfits, tag each item with its brand, and add them to your virtual “closet.” Posts are featured for 24 hours before moving to your closet which allows the app to track which items are worn most often and better understand users’ fashion habits to make smarter purchasing decisions while refining their personal style. By connecting with friends, family, and influencers, users can discover outfit inspiration, explore current trends, and celebrate the art of personal style. Features like a year-end “Style Wrapped” provide insights into favorite outfits and evolving trends, making it easy to reflect on your unique aesthetic over time. Fitted combines authenticity, creativity, and connection, offering a dedicated space where fashion becomes a tool for storytelling and meaningful interaction.
Team members: Kate Seo (kateseo@bu.edu), Janet Liu (jliu@bu.edu), Yuting Lin (linyt@bu.edu), Ngoc My Anh Tran (anhtran8@bu.edu), Isaac Chan (isaacch@bu.edu)
Links: GitHub | Poster | Presentation | Notion Scrum Page
MissedConnections — Audience Choice Award
MissedConnections is a social media app tailored for Boston University students. The app is designed to connect users based on proximity and shared interests. As users go about their daily commutes, the app prompts them to occasionally check in throughout the day. At 9pm, users will be given their daily three Missed Connections: These are people who were not only somewhere along the users’ path, but also share similar interests, goals, and hobbies. Users can then send a friend request to any their matches and further connect: viewing their full profile, social media links, and any photos the user chooses to include. Users can also access the Events Page to participate in new activities and club events happening around Boston University. Lastly, as users go about their daily routines, they can snap a photo every time they check-in, showcasing their everyday activities to their friends on a 24-hour feed. MissedConnections enables users to go out into the world and make meaningful connections.
Team members: Frank Yang (yangfr@bu.edu), Mohammed Hit (mhit@bu.edu), Joseph Marotta (marottaj@bu.edu), Jodi Yu (jodiyu@bu.edu), Andrea Rojas Doupovec (andreard@bu.edu)
Links: GitHub | Product link | Poster | Presentation | Notion Scrum Page
Innovation Program Project Gallery
Every project unveiled at Demo Day reflected the remarkable creativity, technical skill, and entrepreneurial spirit of our students. We’re excited to see how these innovations continue to grow, and hopeful that they will find their way into the world beyond BU.
Score
Score exposes judicial biases to help criminal defense attorneys improve case strategy and ultimately outcomes. Processing data from over 3.5 million criminal cases, Score identifies patterns in how individual judges handle bail, sentencing, and motion decisions. The platform highlights trends in case dispositions and relative leniency, allowing attorneys to anticipate judicial behavior and tailor their approach accordingly.
Team members: Travis Falk (travisf@bu.edu),
Links: GitHub | Product link | Poster | Presentation | Notion Scrum Page
Allin
Allin is a platform designed for university students to simplify hosting and participating in poker games. Inspired by the growing poker scene on campuses, Allin eliminates the hassle of scheduling games across participants with diverse scheduling constraints, managing a waitlist and recruiting last-minute participants, handling small financial exchanges, and tracking game stats like wins, losses, and money earned. With features tailored to enhance the social gaming experience, Allin allows hosts to focus on having fun rather than stressing over logistics and players to make sound financial decisions, including deciding when they can replace their on-campus job with poker earnings! With a web-based prototype currently developed, Allin aims to expand its reach with a mobile application.
Team members: Edaad Azman (edaad@bu.edu),
Links: GitHub | Product link | Poster | Presentation | Notion Scrum Page
MarkitIt
MarkitIt is a web platform designed to streamline the way small business owners discover, apply for, and prepare for pop-up markets. By centralizing pop-up opportunities across cities, MarkitIt helps vendors find events that align with their goals, audiences, and product types. The platform offers personalized recommendations based on vendor profiles, simplifies the application process, and provides essential tools like budget planning and sourcing checklists. For event hosts, MarkitIt makes it easier to review and manage vendor applications while expanding access to a wider, more diverse pool of businesses. Unlike broad event platforms like Eventbrite or The Vendry, MarkitIt puts small businesses first—using AI to deliver personalized pop-up recommendations and a built-in financial calculator that helps vendors apply only to events that make sense for their goals. With a community hub that connects vendors, hosts, and customers, MarkitIt isn’t just a tool—it’s a support system built to simplify, accelerate, and empower the pop-up journey. MarkitIt creates a more inclusive and equitable economy by giving small, underrepresented businesses the tools and visibility they need to succeed in the pop-up space. By reducing barriers to entry—like complex applications, unclear financial outcomes, and lack of access to event organizers—MarkitIt helps entrepreneurs grow sustainably, reach new audiences, and build community wealth. In doing so, it supports local economies, encourages cultural diversity in markets, and ensures that small businesses aren’t just surviving—they’re thriving.
Team members: Raheeq Ibrahim (raheeqi@bu.edu), Jeremiah Somoine
Links: GitHub | Product link | Poster | Presentation | Notion Scrum Page
Sanvia
Sanvia is an AI-powered platform transforming how individuals access and understand medical information online. Inspired by real-life experiences with healthcare challenges, Sanvia empowers users to take control of their health with confidence and comprehensibility. Unlike traditional search engines, it processes complex, contextually burdensome medical queries and integrates user inputs with data from their personal health records, digital fitness trackers like WHOOP, and trusted publicly available medical sources such as WebMD and NIH, bridging the gap between generic searches and personalized healthcare advice. The ultimate incentive of Sanvia is to allow users to be fully aware of the medical resources, alternatives, and implications behind decisions so that they can choose what fits best for their health. The platform leverages these information alongside NLP AI to guide users through context-aware prompts with additional information that builds upon the collection of symptoms so users can better match their health circumstances to likely medical resources and options.
Team members: Wai Yuen (Wylliam) Cheng (wycheng@bu.edu), Justin Wang
Links: GitHub | Product link | Poster | Presentation | Notion Scrum Page
SyncSonic
SyncSonic is a smart solution for music lovers looking to create a seamless audio experience across multiple Bluetooth devices. Designed with university students and shared living spaces in mind, our hardware-software interface integrates effortlessly with phone audio, allowing you to synchronize speakers and soundbars from different brands. Using a compact hub, such as a Raspberry Pi, SyncSonic calibrates your devices for optimal sound and location-based setup. With just a few toggles, you can enjoy whole-apartment music/audio synchronization, making every gathering or study session unforgettable. Say goodbye to brand restrictions and hello to harmony!
Team members: Brooks Wimer (bwimer@bu.edu), Kaylin Von Bergen
Links: GitHub (Physical Device) | GitHub (App) | Product link | Poster | Presentation | Notion Scrum Page
X-Lab and Practicum Presentations
Think Tanks – XC473: Justice Media co-Lab
With the significant exposure of the Project 2025 paper, which was authored by the Heritage Foundation, people have started to pay more attention to organizations similar to them. The Heritage Foundation is a non-profit entity that creates political policy recommendations that they “hope” will be adopted by the government. The organization is backed by donations from a wide variety of sources. However, the organization is a nonprofit and not heavily regulated, which means they can choose to keep much of their operating information secret. People refer to these organizations as “Think Tanks” and many people are concerned about their impact on politics, with very little information on their biases.
Recently, some research and a website were produced analyzing the makeup of think tank donors. However, we are interested in the staff of these organizations. We wonder the following types of questions: What is the demographic profile of the employees?
Where do the employees come from / go to (politics, other think tanks, ivy league schools, etc)? Is there a power network of people who drive most of these organizations?
Maple 3.0 – DS488: UX Practicum
MAPLE (Massachusetts Platform for Legislative Enablement) is a digital public platform designed to bridge the gap between constituents, local organizations, and legislators. Originally incubated at the NuLawLab, MAPLE is now a key initiative of Partners in Democracy, a nonprofit founded by Harvard Professor Danielle Allen that is dedicated to strengthening democratic engagement and civic participation. Partners in Democracy focuses on innovative approaches to democracy reform, including digital tools like MAPLE that empower communities to participate in the legislative process.
This project aims to improve the design and user experience of MAPLE, ensuring it effectively serves a wide range of users—from experienced political leaders to individuals with an interest in law and policy. This semester, teams focused on refining MAPLE and designing its 3.0 version, with an emphasis on improving visual design, navigation, and content organization to enhance usability and accessibility.
Autonomous Mechanics Challenge – DS519: SE Practicum
The client is the Bayesian Experimental Autonomous Researcher project at Boston University. This is an interdisciplinary research team led by Prof. Keith A. Brown in Mechanical Engineering. This team has developed a robotic system that combines 3D printing, automated testing, and machine learning. This system is capable of designing and testing components that have excellent mechanical properties for applications like helmet pads or crumple zones. The team is now partnering with the Hariri Institute to share this resource with the community. The goal is to allow other teams to design structures and test them using the robotic system at BU.
BU Award Analysis – DS539: DS Practicum
Strategy & Innovation (S&I) at Boston University supports the development and implementation of BU’s strategic vision, capabilities, and priorities in close collaboration with internal and external stakeholders. Academic Analytics is a platform that allows university leaders and faculty to benchmark their research output compared to peers. One part of their offering allows the benchmarking of prizes and awards. The client is interested in finding a way to predict faculty’s likelihood of winning an award based on the current set of awards that they have won.
Boston Public Library – DS549: ML Practicum
For the past 15 years, the Boston Public Library has been digitizing photographs, newspapers, maps, manuscripts, books, postcards, audiovisual recordings, and other materials from Massachusetts libraries and making them available on Digital Commonwealth. This site currently offers access to millions of digital objects from over 250 different institutions across the state so that they may be available to researchers, students, and the general public. Items can be discovered by searching for keywords within the descriptive metadata (title, author, subject, etc.) or full text. BPL is interested in enhancing the search features of the site to be able to understand natural language queries. BPL also wants to be able to enhance the search results with additional information about the documents returned, such as an explanation of how the tool arrived at its search in order to build trust in the results.
OPAT – DS594: Data Visualization
The City of Boston Office of Police Accountability and Transparency (OPAT) was formed in December 2020 in response to massive calls for police reform. Our client, Michael Berger, is OPAT’s new Policy & Data Analyst. He is helping the office in its mission of investigating complaints of police misconduct and ensuring BPD has a fair and equitable internal affairs review process. As part of OPAT’s ordinance, the office runs a set of dashboards on BPD data.
To help OPAT’s mission of police accountability and transparency, students will analyze 3 datasets: one on Field Interrogation and Observation (FIO), one on arrests and Use of Force, which contains information about the person that got arrested or/and any police encounters such as their ethnicity and type of interaction/force. The students will create interactive dashboards to visualize BPD FIOs and arrests by race, year, location, and more.
Terrier Course Compass – Special Showcase: DS 719 MSDS Project Management Course
A heartfelt thank you to our Demo Day judges, instructors, mentors, and Spark! staff — your guidance and support made this event possible. The passion and purpose our students brought to their projects is a direct reflection of the inspiration you’ve sparked in them.
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Housed at Boston University’s Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences, BU Spark! is an incubator and experiential learning lab for computer science and engineering projects. Spark! provides the infrastructure to support student innovation projects and engagement in applied research or real-world technology projects, while fostering an inclusive, connected community around interdisciplinary computing and data science.