Nexus Louisiana Announces DevDays Education Challenge Winners and Unveils Inaugural Stealthmode Startup School Cohort

BATON ROUGE, LA — Nexus Louisiana today announced the winners of its DevDays Education Challenge and introduced the inaugural cohort of companies from Stealthmode Startup School, capping a July 2 showcase focused on Louisiana student innovation and venture-scale startup creation.

The DevDays Education Challenge is part of Nexus Louisiana’s statewide innovation competition for engineering, computer science, and business students, with finalists competing for $10,000 in cash prizes by building solutions to real-world problems. This edition of the challenge was developed in partnership with New Schools for Louisiana and centered on tools that help transform fragmented education data into clearer, decision-ready insights for Louisiana’s K-12 system.

First place went to Olisemeka Nmarkwe, a graduate student at Southeastern Louisiana University, for Bayou Analytica, a platform that combines 20 years of Louisiana K-12 data into a single interactive map spanning academic records, behavior trends, financial data, and workforce projections. The tool allows users to click into any parish, receive a 0 to 100 Health Score with drivers behind that score, and run simulations such as the impact of raising teacher salaries in a specific parish.

"This competition [DevDays] helps me tackle difficult challenges and consider how I can use technology to positively impact people," said Nmarkwe. "My experience was great - the mentoring was top-notch, and the judges gave good feedback on the prototype, which helped align me toward my final product. As an engineer, I always have blind spots when building, and the mentor really helped me stay on track and prioritize the right features.

Nmarkwe’s win marked several milestones: it was his second time competing in DevDays, after his team earned second place earlier this year in the Environmental Challenge hosted with The Water Institute, and this is the first time a solo participant has won the competition.

Second place went to LA EDU LENS, developed by Hudson Vu, a senior computer science student from Louisiana State University. Third place went to Grid64, developed by sophomore computer science students Anmol Subedi and Bishesta Dulal from the University of Louisiana at Monroe.

“New Schools for Louisiana was proud to partner on a challenge that asked students to build tools grounded in real needs facing Louisiana’s education system,” said Kara Maggiore, founder and CEO of New Schools for Louisiana. “The winning solutions showed how technology can help leaders make smarter decisions about where opportunity gaps exist, where demand is changing, and how resources can be aligned to better serve students across the state.”

Nexus Louisiana also unveiled the inaugural cohort of Stealthmode Startup School, the program built to advance the organization’s 10-year goal of launching 1,000 net-new startups in Louisiana that are building venture-track technology, capable of attracting venture capital or federal funding, and built to hire and scale. Rather than a traditional pitch competition, Demo Day followed Stealthmode’s no-pitch, builder-first format: founders showcased live product and traction directly to investors and partners instead of delivering rehearsed pitches, keeping the focus on what they had actually built.

Over six weeks, founders in the program participated in hands-on workshops, one-on-one mentorship, customer discovery, legal and financial education, product development, and investor-readiness programming. The inaugural cohort included startups building venture-track technology across health, education, agriculture, construction, government, defense, and e-commerce. Throughout the sprint, founders refined their business models, built product demonstrations, and validated customer demand ahead of Demo Day.

The inaugural cohort includes ArcHoops, Atlas Robotics, Bolt OS LLC, Clear, FarmMind, Flexinetic, Hithlian Technologies, Local Influence, Minuvestor, NineSixteen Capital, and Zokyo Potty Pal.

While Demo Day marked the conclusion of the formal accelerator, founders who completed the program became members of Nexus Louisiana, with continued access to the organization’s startup community, mentorship network, educational programming, workspace, and other resources to support long-term growth.

"Great startup ecosystems aren’t built on ideas alone; they’re built by founders who execute,” said Tony Zanders, President and CEO of Nexus Louisiana. "The strength of this inaugural cohort isn’t just the companies they’ve built—it’s what they represent. Louisiana has the talent to build venture-backable technology companies, and Stealthmode is helping turn that potential into reality.”

The July 2 event brought together students, founders, investors, educators, and ecosystem partners for a full day of demos and startup presentations in Baton Rouge, reflecting Nexus Louisiana’s broader mission to turn ambitious ideas into real, scalable technology companies.

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