Vital Guardian, a company addressing the often-ignored crisis of kidney disease, took the $20,000 top prize at Ward Infinity’s lively and inspirational showcase and pitch competition at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center in Washington, D.C., on January 29.
Led by naturopathic doctor Shaundel Knights, Vital Guardian uses artificial intelligence, patient medical records, and fitness tracking devices to provide personalized kidney wellness assessments and behavior plans focused on adequate activity levels, sleep, and hydration.
Six other ventures—all led by members of Ward Infinity’s 2025 fellowship cohort—took part in the pitch competition, highlighting early-stage businesses and nonprofits that promise to use technology to improve public health in Washington, D.C. and beyond. In addition to cash prizes, the event gave budding entrepreneurs opportunities to tout their projects to potential investors and others.
Ward Infinity started at Sibley Memorial Hospital in 2017 with the goal of supporting community-rooted ventures that address population health issues, particularly in Washington D.C.’s wards seven and eight, communities plagued by poverty and poor access to care.
It’s now part of the Johns Hopkins University and Medicine’s Government, Community, and Economic Partnerships office.
“Our work is all about connection,” said Maria Harris Tildon, vice president for Government, Community, and Economy Partnerships. “It’s not just to generate ideas, but to ensure those ideas reach communities, strengthen opportunity, and improve lives.” Speaking at the pitch competition, her third, she remarked that it gets bigger and more ambitious each year.
Turning ideas into reality
Ward Infinity’s centerpiece is its 16-week impact accelerator fellowship, which helps company founders turn their ideas into partnership-ready businesses by teaming them with executives-in-residence and Carey Business School students earning master’s degrees in business and in information systems and artificial intelligence for business.
One such Carey student is Shreyans Singhvi, who is earning dual master’s degrees in business and healthcare management. He’s supporting GenAssist, a company led by Joe Beggs, with Gabe Haas as chief technology officer, which has developed patented technology that supports the regrowth of muscle that has been damaged or removed through surgery.
Singhvi, an internal medicine doctor who came to Carey to develop his business and leadership acumen, met the GenAssist team while volunteering at a Ward Infinity reception. “I really liked what they were doing,” he said. “I could see that it would help so many patients.”
He helped with their business plan and arranged discovery meetings with surgeons and orthopedists to discuss how they would use the product.
“It was a real hands-on experience,” he said, one that gave him “a perfect opportunity to combine my clinical background and business background.”
That combination is a big part of what makes the Ward Infinity program so valuable to its participants.
“Before I came into this program, there were so many things I didn’t know I didn’t know,” said Knights.
Making the pitch
This year, 15 ventures in the program were winnowed down to seven for the pitch competition. (The others were highlighted throughout the event.)
Leaders of those seven ventures had five minutes each–plus three minutes for questions from a panel of judges to explain why their project deserved support. With anecdotes and slide decks, participants quickly explained the public health gap their product would fill, described their offerings, and outlined the current stage of their businesses and their proposed next steps.
The judges were Lasse Mertins, Carey’s vice dean for education; Brandon Andrews of Shark Tank; Jennifer Elisseeff, head of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Johns Hopkins; Haley Bryant of the Hustle Fund; and Emily Zhen of Zeal Capital. The sixth judge was VERA, an artificial intelligence arbiter developed by Carey MS in Information Systems and Artificial Intelligence student Tong Zeng.
VERA, which stands for venture evaluation and reasoning agent, is a multi-modal AI pitch judge system designed to evaluate startup pitches with the rigor of a human venture capitalist. Zeng’s idea for VERA stemmed from observing a gap in how students prepare for competitions.
“They often receive vague feedback like ‘good presentation’ without actionable data. I built VERA to bridge that gap, ensuring that the AI "sees" the slide visuals while "listening" to the founder, just like a real judge would,” Zeng explained.
In her pitch, Knights said she was inspired to start Vital Guardian because 37 million Americans live with chronic kidney disease, which is almost always undiagnosed until damage is severe. The Ward Infinity program, she says, helped her move from that initial inspiration to the creation of a business with products that are now being used by some of her clients, and can be licensed to clinics and insurance partners.
Many of the speakers said they were inspired by the health struggles of their relatives.
Second prize and $10,000 went to Jonathan Tate, a second-generation firefighter and founder of Food on the Stove. He said his father had suffered from heart disease, a serious problem among firefighters who pay for the food they cook and eat while on duty, too often choosing inexpensive and unhealthy options.
His nonprofit is bringing healthier options to first responders, with vending machines in local hospitals so emergency workers can access jarred salads and other foods while they wait at hospitals, and by offering meal kits that use algorithms to source local, healthful ingredients.
“Ward Infinity has been my biggest leg up in learning how to scale this business,” he said.
Jasmine Jones, CEO of Myya, which took $1,000 as VERA’s top choice, said her grandmother’s struggles inspired her to develop a line of post-mastectomy products. “She never received care that felt thoughtful or dignified after her double mastectomy,” says Jones. “Her bras didn’t fit, and her breast forms didn’t match her body or skin tone.”
Audience members cast votes with their smartphones, choosing GenAssist for the people’s choice award.
Additional pitches were from Faridat Ilupeju, CEO of Kunaya, who said her plant-based tiger nut milk is nutrient-dense and completely allergen-free; Salynt, with Jeremy Lawson as founder and CEO, which promises an advanced neuroimaging platform for brain tumors; and Regenova Pharmaceuticals, led by Ankur Patel, who said his company “flips the model of drug discovery” by using quantum computing to simulate the biology of disease and test potential treatments.
Clearing a path, and sharing tools
Speakers included A.J. Browne, director of Community Health Design + Innovation for Johns Hopkins Medicine and University, who spoke of the immense power of artificial intelligence.
“For the first time in human history, we’re not just passing down tools or institutions,” he said. “We’re passing down decision-making logic. Welcome to a room where technology isn’t just impressive. It’s human, it’s community-rooted, it’s accountable.”
Bitter cold temps and icy sidewalks didn’t diminish the event, which included a showcase of all 15 Ward Infinity ventures, and brought together past winners, potential investors, and people who were simply interested in new ideas and their potential to improve health. Several participants brought their families, including young children.
Sheila Collins, the managing advisor of Ward Infinity, said even the non-investors in the room could support the featured entrepreneurs by sharing advice, trying their products, or posting about the ventures on social media.
“As I was walking through the snowy streets to get here, I couldn’t help but think this is exactly what building a venture feels like,” she said. “You’re moving forward, but the path isn’t clear. Every step takes effort, and sometimes you just want somebody to salt the sidewalk. That’s what we’re doing here.”
