An app to protect the privacy of personal photos of young women and student athletes was the winning idea in the 2026 Bardusch Family IdeaMakers Challenge, held March 25 during Penn State Startup Week powered by PNC. Hosted annually by the College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST), the IdeaMakers Challenge is an early-stage business idea competition that invites teams to identify a problem and pitch a solution that leverages digital innovation.
Team Medusa earned top honors and the $3,000 prize. Isabella Masso and Marisa Vandenberg, undergraduate students majoring in cybersecurity analytics and operations in the College of IST, presented the idea.
Medusa aims to address a personal digital threat: the nonconsensual use and distribution of individuals' images and videos online. Designed with young women and student athletes in mind, Medusa helps users reclaim control over their digital identities by detecting where their likeness has appeared online without their consent - and taking action to remove it.
The idea for Medusa emerged when Vandenberg assisted a friend - a Penn State athlete with an active social media presence - in reporting the misuse of her online content. The experience revealed both the scope of the problem across the country and the lack of accessible tools to address it.
"I noticed that thousands of young women had their photos redistributed on explicit forums, websites and image boards," Vandenberg said. "It was disturbing."
According to Masso, the platform works by combining facial recognition and keyword-matching technologies to proactively scan the web for misused imagery. Once unauthorized content is identified, Medusa automates the reporting and takedown process by submitting requests to the platforms where the material appears. What once required hours of manual searching and reporting can now happen efficiently and at scale, Masso said.
"This was a valuable opportunity to explore the creative and business side of technology and promote digital peace of mind," Masso said.
The challenge was open to undergraduate students across the University. Participating teams received mentoring from faculty, industry leaders and experienced entrepreneurs to develop their idea-pitching skills, which they presented to judge Matt Bellingeri, deputy chief information security officer at CoreWeave, in the semi-final round.
The top five teams were invited back to present final pitches to a new group of expert judges: Marc Friedenberg, assistant teaching professor in the College of IST and event organizer; Doug Balog, founder and president of DB Group Consulting; Dave Costlow, chief operating office at Pledge It; John Esteves, cofounder and principal at ME2 Consulting, LLC; Hermes Frangoudis, director of developer relations and partner engineering at Agora; and Steve Grilli, retired business executive.
Each idea pitch was followed by a Q&A session with the judges, who evaluated the teams on how well they articulated the problem, how well their proposed solution addressed it, how well they defined their customer segment and how critical a role technology played in their solution.
"This year's teams didn't just build impressive technological solutions; they tackled the practical and ethical realities of deploying them in the real world," Friedenberg said. "Seeing them navigate complex issues - from user privacy to responsible use of AI in higher education - shows exactly what it takes to be a responsible innovator today."
Team DigiLIB received the $2,000 second-place prize for their idea. DigiLIB is an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered search engine, conversational researcher and export system that promotes accountability in academic work. Presenters included Amartya Sai Andra, who is majoring in information sciences and technology in the College of IST; Madhura Khandkar, who is majoring in computer sciences in the College of Engineering; and Sharvari Purighalla, who is majoring in computational data sciences in the College of Engineering.
The $1,000 third-place prize went to StayStocked, a delivery app designed to pre-stock vacation rentals with grocery orders so guests don't have to spend time shopping. StayStocked was presented by Garrett Anderson, who is majoring in cybersecurity analytics and operations in the College of IST, and Henry McQuate-Krahnke, who is majoring in political science in the College of the Liberal Arts.
The Dave Hall Award was presented to Team esdrs, who proposed a clothes-swapping app for college students. Name for the late dean of the College of IST - who was instrumental in developing Startup Week and the IdeaMakers Challenge - the award recognizes the team that best exemplifies the challenge's spirit of collaboration and innovation. Accepting the award were Angela Colom, a Schreyer Honors Scholar majoring in computer science in the College of Engineering; Dominque Guenther, who is majoring in data sciences in the College of IST; and Emilia Palmer, a Schreyer Scholar majoring in computer engineering in the College of Engineering.
Friedenberg organized the challenge and helped mentor students as they developed their ideas. As the faculty coordinator, he reviewed all team applications, selected the teams to forward to the semifinals, paired teams with mentors and met with teams to review content and prepare presentations.
"Working with these students is a privilege because they represent the next generation of problem solvers who understand that the best startups combine technical capability with a deep sense of social responsibility," Friedenberg said.
Watch the final presentations online.
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