26th Annual Big Bang! Business Competition Video

From AI-powered manufacturing solutions and livestock health tech to agricultural genomics and life-saving medical devices, this year's Big Bang! Business Competition at UC Davis showcased the next generation of innovators tackling real-world challenges.

After months of preparation, workshops and mentorship, finalists pitched their ventures before a panel of judges for a share of nearly $100,000 in prize money and startup support. The competition recognized outstanding teams across multiple sectors, including agriculture, animal health, healthcare, education, sustainability and social impact.

Organized by the UC Davis Mike and Renée Child Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, the competition brings together students, researchers and innovators from across California.

Since 2000, Big Bang! has served as a launchpad for promising entrepreneurs, providing mentorship, workshops, networking opportunities and pitch experience to help transform promising ideas into successful ventures.

Watch the highlights from the 2026 Big Bang! Awards Ceremony, meet the entrepreneurs behind the ideas and celebrate the innovation, creativity and determination driving the future of California and beyond..

Video Transcript

Joe DiNunzio
Executive Director, Mike and Renee Child Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Adjunct Assistant Professor

We are here at the Big Bang to honor amazing innovators and entrepreneurs from UC Davis and all over the state of California. 

We gave away $100,000 in grants for inspiring innovations. They're going to change the world.

Jeremy Ampofo MSBA 25
CEO, HerdSense

Hey. I'm Jeremy Ampofo. I'm CEO of HerdSense. And I'm here with HerdSense to end premature cow lameness.

One in four cows at the moment are lame, which means they have a visible limp. So we at HerdSense have built an AI and ML lameness detection tool to help end that early lameness and bring that one in four cows on a herd that produce your milk, your cheese, your yogurt—and make those cows healthy.

Navi Gill
CEO, Opsage AI

Hello everyone. I'm Navi Gill, CEO and founder of Opsage AI. We're helping reimagine manufacturing in North America by using AI agents that troubleshoot issues in real time and help operators and technicians solve them as they occur, rather than just getting buried by the data and finding the solutions later.

Marie Klein
Co-Founder, Ground Truth Genomics

Hi, I'm Marie Klein, and I'm a Business Development Fellow. I'm a postdoc in the Plant Sciences Department. I work with trees. I'm in the field, I do research, so this is a great experience for me to have business knowledge and learn the language and learn something new I wasn't familiar with.

I am the co-founder of Ground Truth Genomics, and we offer whole genome certainty for high-value crops. If you are a grower or farmer or a nurseryman and you want to check your plant material, we can come out to the field and we offer a service to check the genomic integrity that includes mutation, but also: is the variety actually the variety that you were hoping for?

Grant Scruggs MBA 26
COO, Eloquent

I'm Grant Scruggs, and I'm the COO of Eloquent. At Eloquent, we're transforming everyday communication into eloquent speech that really makes an impact. We're trying to help people with technology and make sure that they have the best speech and put their best foot forward in every meeting they are in.

Team First Bite

Hi. We're Team First Bite, and we're a team of UC Davis biomedical engineering undergraduates. We're working on a non-adhesive, more secure endotracheal tube holder for the NICU and PICU. And our goal is to protect life's first breaths.

Hi, guys. We're First Bite, and we just won first place at Big Bang!

And we're so, so grateful for all the mentors and all the help that we got from everyone at Big Bang! And I'm so grateful for my team. It's been a long process to get here. It's been really good. We've had a lot of interviews with clinicians and a lot of work with a bunch of people, so we'd like to thank all of them for the input they've had in this device.

And we really hope we can get it out to market and be able to help a lot of little babies out there and help them live a better life.
Thank you. Thank you, Big Bang!