The Sonny Astani Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering (CEE) at USC Viterbi is associated with a culture of entrepreneurship – the Innovate x LA: Das Family Student Competition (30 April, 2026) has become a staple of the USC calendar, challenging student teams to develop startup concepts that tackle urban issues in Los Angeles. The stakes are high, and so is the prize: $20,000 in seed funding for the winning team, with an additional $10,000 for the runner-up.
The hackathon staged during The Games Week at USC: Building LA28 (2-6 March) was a supercharged mini version of the Das Family Competition: 5 days, a $1000 prize, and a focus on innovations specific to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic & Paralympic Games.
The panel of judges featured Mark Esguerra, director of transmission and substation engineering at Southern California Edison; Joseph Chicas, director of fund development at Director of Fund Development at Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation (LAEDC); Lauren Faber O’Connor, partner at Lowercarbon Capital; and Elissa Grossman, Jill Brooks-Garnett Teaching Chair in Entrepreneurship and professor of clinical entrepreneurship at USC Marshall School of Business.
Flipping the model of the typical innovation-ethic “move fast and break things,” a CEE-hosted hackathon is all about “think fast and build things.” The final pitches, presented to the judges on 6 March, were judged according to their inventiveness, originality, applicability and power of presentation; ultimately students’ concepts had to translate to real-world impact and be able to thrive in the economic ecosystem of LA28.
The matter with waste matter
Applying civil and environmental engineering principles to the challenges of LA28, students’ ideas included ambitious solutions for grid management, traffic flows and low carbon short-term construction – the winning team, however, focused on a smaller but high-impact issue: the management of discarded packaging and waste left behind after events at large-scale venues.
Combining expertise in medicine, architecture, biomedical engineering, construction management and civil engineering, Team MatterFlow’s concept involved using computer vision and machine learning to automate aluminum recovery at large venues. Inspired by firsthand observations at the LA Memorial Coliseum – where sorting crews can spend up to five days and $2,400 per day manually processing waste – the team identified a critical inefficiency: more than 20% of recoverable aluminum remains buried in mixed waste, requiring labor-intensive sorting.
MatterFlow automates the first stage of this process. Waste is fed into a gravity-driven chute, where computer vision identifies aluminum cans in real time as they fall. Mechanical actuators then divert those cans into a separate stream before they ever reach manual sorting.
Designed specifically for high-throughput, space-constrained environments like stadiums and other sports venues, the system integrates directly into existing workflows. The result: lower costs, faster turnaround, and more consistent material recovery – along with the ability to generate the data required under California’s AB 2176 mandate.
Power of 3: How to Craft a Successful Pitch?
The power of many minds: “Build a team with diverse skills – and don’t be afraid to include bold, unconventional thinkers,” said Ishaani Pradeep, an undergraduate studying biomedical engineering at USC Viterbi. “Our diverse skillsets and unique perspectives truly set our team apart,” said Pradeep, an undergraduate studying biomedical engineering at USC Viterbi.
MatterFlow team members Ishaani Pradeep and Salma Setia
“No two members of the team share the same background. Aiden Pushin (an undergraduate studying construction management at USC Viterbi) brought critical on-the-ground insight into stadium operations and deployment realities. Salma Setia (an undergraduate studying health promotion and disease prevention at USC Keck School of Medicine) led customer discovery and field operations, grounding the entire project in real-world needs. Cassius Palacio (an undergraduate at USC School of Architecture) drove product strategy, ensuring what we built fit seamlessly into venue workflows. I translated that vision into reality through AI and robotics validation, and Claudia Zambrano (a master’s student studying civil engineering at USC Viterbi built the financial model that made the solution scalable.”
“We operated like an Olympic relay team, each of us passing the baton at exactly the right moment – because without each member, MatterFlow would not succeed.”
Identify the right problem: “Believe it or not, our idea was inspired by a simple tomato sorter,” said Pushin. “ Our focus was on circular movement in sustainability — the idea that every item could have a second life. We were inspired by the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, where 90% of equipment, furniture and tech was required to be reused, donated or recycled.”
“We made a point of seeking to cross-reference our concept with the firsthand knowledge of those in the know. It was important to us to stay open to potential backtracking and alternative paths – we learnt that self-friction can be avoided if you’re willing to test ideas against reality and move on quickly if they fail.”
When validating their initial concept on site at the Coliseum, the team witnessed the true scale of the problem and set out to rapidly revise their approach. “Seeing what waste processing looks like in practice helped us make our idea feasible and logical,” Pushin continued. “In addition, our reach in customer discovery and our specific approach to sustainability beyond a one-week timeline were among the key factors that stood out to the judges.”
Use your time wisely: “We front-loaded validation,” said Setia. “Instead of spending the first couple of days blindly building, we spent them talking to venue operators, sustainability directors and waste sorters. That meant by the time we sat down to design MatterFlow, we weren’t guessing at the problem – we had heard it directly from the people living it. Overall, we recognized the importance of designing with clarity and integrity for a broad audience.”
The team also prioritized speed and adaptability: “We divided and conquered ruthlessly,” Setia continued. “Nobody was waiting on anyone else. We reconvened, synthesized, and kept moving. When hitting a roadblock, I made it a point to accept the changing tides and pivot without hard feelings. One of our mentors always tells us to ‘fail fast’ – and we did that many times. But instead of viewing failure as the end, it became a step closer to the finish line.”
In hindsight…
“If we were able to go through the process again, I think we would be really ambitious in our exploration of what an ideal first solution is,” said Palacio. “MVP was not in our vocabulary at first – we explored many different ways to approach the problem before landing on one.”
“As a creative, budgeting more time to explore where else we could influence change and efficiency is something I would’ve loved to push further,” he reflected. “That early design phase really helps shape how you communicate your idea to a wider audience – not just what you build, but why people should believe in it.”
Scaling MatterFlow for LA28
“Not every venue is built the same,” said Zambrano. “The Coliseum is an older venue with historical context, while newer venues often already have infrastructure aligned with sustainability initiatives. MatterFlow was designed for venues that may not have the proper systems in place but still want to be environmentally responsible.”
Looking ahead, the team sees broader impact: “If scaled for LA28, we would hope to reach historical venues across Los Angeles that have limited space to work in, ensuring sustainability efforts citywide,” Zambrano added. “We also hope these venues will permanently implement MatterFlow beyond the Olympics, making recycling efforts sustainable in the long term. Ultimately, the judges admired that our idea was implementable and scalable,” the team explained. “It’s not a flashy technology that claims to solve everything – it’s something that could realistically integrate into existing systems.”
Published on April 13th, 2026
Last updated on April 13th, 2026