On April 14, eight student teams from around the world were invited to Stanford for the 13th Annual Longevity Design Challenge finals. This year’s theme — Prevention by Design: Creating Healthy Lifestyles for Long Lives — drew submissions from 250-plus teams from more than 30 countries, offering ideas and inventions to improve well-being across the lifespan. Here are the winners:

PhoroVis (1st Place, $10,000), University of Texas at Austin

This U.S.-based team, including Krishn Virani, Bethel Daniel, Mihir Thakur, Mahith Ravulapati and An Vo, designed a low-cost device for determining eyeglass prescriptions. Their invention is an alternative to the phoropter, an expensive eye examination instrument that is hard to access in many developing countries. Visual impairment affects more than 2.2 billion people around the world. At least 1 billion cases — nearly half — are avoidable or unaddressed due to a lack of access to eyeglasses or vision care, according to the World Health Organization. The winning team’s invention, called a PhoroVis, relies on a mechanical liquid lens, weighs around 20 pounds and has a target price of $100. 

Neevel (2nd Place, $5,000), Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul & University of North Carolina at Charlotte

This binational team, Verônica Vanti from Brazil and Andrei Vince from the U.S., designed sensor-equipped insoles that can be placed in shoes or slippers to prevent falls, a problem that affects 700,000 to 1 million people in the U.S. annually, resulting in around 250,000 injuries and up to 11,000 deaths. Vanti and Vince’s insoles come with a nightlight, which serves as a data hub that provides users with gait screening and guided daily exercises for fall prevention. The Neevel team also designed an app that allows family members to keep abreast of the information gathered by the insole-nightlight system.

Shenergy (3rd Place, $2,000), Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani

This Indian team, led by Parisha Mehta and Utkarsh Dugar, created a school-based health education program to address the long-term risk of PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome) in adolescent girls. One in five females in India suffers from PCOS, a hormonal disorder that often leads to infertility and is frequently linked to insulin resistance, weight gain, acne and excessive hair growth. An estimated 10 to 13% of women worldwide have PCOS, and 70% of those women remain undiagnosed. To address a problem that is getting little attention and that can be effectively managed through diet, exercise and common medications, Shenergy developed a 12-week interactive education program for girls in grade 8. 

The Stanford Center on Longevity congratulates all of this year’s winners and finalists and is grateful to the judges, mentors and supporters who made the 2026 Longevity Design Challenge possible.