Matt Gacek isn’t done yet.
Now that the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering junior has won the TechPoint Mira Student Entrepreneur of the Year Award for Theia, his ground-breaking AI therapy and personal growth app, he’s ready for the next step.
“This award is an important milestone in my entrepreneurial journey,” Gacek said. “It inspires me to dream bigger, work harder, and continue striving to make a positive impact through innovation and leadership.”
The Mira student award recognizes exceptional student startup founders and/or operators of any age and experience who have started a company or launched a product or service and generated revenue.
Three months after Theia’s August of 2023 launching, Gacek sold it to Miri, a San Francisco-based AI-driven health and wellness platform. The computer science major’s success was fueled by Luddy’s Shoebox incubation program, which is now known as the Sparklab incubation program under IU Innovates.
“Winning the Mira student entrepreneurship award is an incredible honor that I want to share with the entire community of driven, passionate student entrepreneurs out there,” Gacek said. “I'm humbled and motivated to keep pushing myself to learn, grow, and achieve.
“I see this award as a reflection not just of my own efforts, but of the amazing support, mentorship and collaboration I've experienced from so many others. I'm excited to pay that forward and to see what new opportunities emerge from here.”
The Shoebox incubation program was launched and operated by Luddy’s Shoemaker Innovation Center, which provides resources for student entrepreneurs and innovators to develop their business ideas. It has been migrated to IU Innovates, a university-wide initiative to support students and faculty in the creation and growth of startup ventures, and rebranded as the Sparklab.
TechPoint is an industry-led growth initiative geared for the state of Indiana’s digital innovation economy. The Mira Awards recognize the best of the state’s technology. Since 1999, more than 2,000 nominees have been selected and 292 people, products and companies have been awarded.
Gacek and another Sparklab client, Charlie Edmonds, were among the five nominees for the student award, which was presented during TechPoint’s 25th annual awards event in late April in downtown Indianapolis.
Edmonds, a doctoral student in music education at the Jacobs School of Music, founded Pocket Methods, which uses Black gospel music in its educational platform for beginner back and orchestra students.
Travis Brown, senior executive assistant dean, senior executive assistant dean of innovation, entrepreneurship and commercialization, said he was hopeful either Gacek or Edmonds would win the student award.
“Working closely with Matt as a Luddy School student, including as a Shoemaker Scholar, I directly witnessed his entrepreneurial journey which has resulted in this well-deserved acknowledgement,” Brown said. “Matt exemplifies what an entrepreneur capable of applying technology to address pressing societal needs can accomplish.”
Julie Heath, executive director of IU Innovates, has praised Gacek and Edmonds for capitalizing on IU’s entrepreneurship resources to turn their ideas into promising and innovative startup ventures. She said it reflects that emerging entrepreneurs are a strength for the state that IU Innovates helps maximize.