Announcing the second cohort of Inflection Grants

Sometimes the hardest part of building at the forefront of tech & science isn’t the ambition or the idea, it’s getting enough compute. To bridge that gap, we’ve teamed up with Prime Intellect, pioneers in decentralized compute for AI, to create a special Compute Edition of Inflection Grants.

With Inflection Grants, we support frontier builders under 25 at a pivotal moment in their projects or ventures. In this edition, instead of cash awards like the previous cohort, each grantee receives $2,000 worth of compute resources on Prime Intellect’s platform.

From Bangladesh to California, we’re excited to support this new group of young innovators at the edge of possibility.

Meet the Grantees

Thomas Nguyen

24, West Palm Beach, Florida

Thomas Nguyen is building Luna AI, a local AI “box” designed to run language models fully offline: no internet, no data leaks, and no cost per token. With this grant, Thomas is running experiments to shrink large models and optimize small ones for efficient deployment on low-cost hardware.

As a former Tesla intern and YouTube educator, he’s convinced the next breakthroughs in AI will come from full-stack builders who can navigate the whole pipeline, from hardware to inference.

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Avani Agarwal

16, India

Avani Agarwal is co-founder of Synthera, an AI-powered platform accelerating drug discovery across some of the most complex biomedical targets. Already beta-tested at Harvard, MGH, and Yale, Synthera is pushing the frontier of how AI can help scientists move faster from molecule to medicine.

With this grant, Avani is scaling compute resources and simulations to expand clinical reach. A Harvard Ventures fellow and international kickboxing gold medalist, she believes adaptability—not stability—will define the future of science and society.

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Cosmas Mandikonza

20, San Francisco, California

Cosmas Mandikonza is the creator of Heama, a smartphone app designed to non-invasively detect anemia and hypertension using just the camera. With $2,000 in compute credits, Cosmas is training AI models for clinical validation and building out features for user testing and SMS integration.

His journey includes work at Meta & Major League Hacking, award-winning AI projects, and deeply personal innovations like Pregaid, a maternal care app he built after his sister’s passing. For Cosmas, the future of health tech is simple: it should fit in your pocket.

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Kristine Pashin

20, Stanford, California

Kristine Pashin is co-founder of ArticleIP, a platform using retrieval-augmented AI to turn scientific papers and invention disclosures into structured, USPTO-ready patent applications. Already piloted by researchers across biotech, hardware, and advanced materials, ArticleIP is now scaling to reach more innovators who lack access to patent support.

With this grant, Kristine is training models on underrepresented compound types and expanding infrastructure for an open-access pilot, bringing her vision of accessible, automated patent protection closer to reality.

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Rudra Protap Nandi

17, Bangladesh

Rudra Protap Nandi is proving that frontier science doesn’t only happen in elite labs. As a high school researcher from Bangladesh, he’s building machine learning tools to improve gravitational wave detection and apps that help farmers detect crop issues from space.

With this grant, Rudra is expanding compute and infrastructure to make his astrophysics research usable at scale. He sees open science as the key to shifting who gets to innovate, and believes the next breakthroughs will come from geographies we least expect.

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These grants are part of something bigger: supporting people who are building unusually early and unusually well. Edge City popup villages are one way we prototype new futures, but many inflection points happen far from these gatherings. Inflection Grants exist to support those sparks of momentum, when a bold idea starts to take shape into something that might change the world.

Thanks to  Prime Intellect for supporting this initiative!

Want to support the next inflection point?

• Donate: Help us fund the next cohort of early-stage builders. Every dollar goes directly to grantees.
• Mentor: Interested in guiding a grantee? Get in touch.
• Apply: If you’re under 25 and a $2,000 grant could change your trajectory, we’ll be accepting applications for the next cohort.

We’re excited to keep supporting new builders, new experiments, and new inflection points. More soon.

– Edge City Team ☀️