MS Student Monica Umeda and her team, Akabotics, won the $10,000 first-place prize in the Fast Pitch round at Chapman University’s California Dreamin’ Conference and Competition.  

With co-founder, Newton Parks, Akabotics seeks to produce intelligent robots for autonomous dredging, touted as the "ROOMBA for water." The system is intended to reduce costs and environmental impacts as compared to traditional dredging.

Per the Chapman website:  "The California Dreamin’ Competition strives to simulate the real-world process of starting a business and seeking start-up funding, while also providing constructive feedback to all competing teams to better help them achieve their goals."