Yang Gao, Institute of Design MDM candidate, Mengmeing Zhuang, ECE Ph.D. candidate, Zhen Bao, ECE Ph.D. candidate, and their startup ZD Energy were named finalists for the Chicago regional round of Tiger Launch, the largest national student-founded startup contest.

Gao, Zhuang, and Bao met at an open innovation challenge hosted by NREL and the Department of Energy. Mengmeing and Zhen had a mission to help encourage the general public to be more energy-efficient and environmentally conscious. Yang joined the group and together they formed ZD Energy.

ZD Energy is the first AI “personal trainer” for your home appliances, providing device-level energy data in real time and customized energy diet plans through a highly engaging experience.

Their mission is to help transform home energy management for all wi-fi enabled homes, and fundamentally shift actionable knowledge power to users with effective channel and personalized solutions. Together with other companies involved in the home energy ecosystem, they plan to achieve effective and long-lasting bottom-up engagement through core patent-pending AI tech + engaging design.

You can support the team by voting here.