A Georgia Tech lab and an Emory neurosurgeon are teaming up on untethered microrobots designed to reach the deepest, hardest-to-treat corners of the brain.

It was Ruth Geller’s last day of ninth grade. She and her friends wanted to celebrate, but they noticed a problem: teens had nowhere to hang out. Instead of giving up and scrolling on her phone, she decided to find a solution. Now, she’s the founder of Vivaly. The app gives users a catalog of free, real-life experiences they can do solo or with friends. The activities range from watching sunsets to making sweet snacks to hosting sleepovers.

Build Day X Innovation Bootcamp hackathon was a true launchpad for Barsa Majidi. After participating in one of the winning teams, Majidi continued to build on the idea. The result for this Georgia teen? He founded SkinTight AI, an AI-powered skin cancer monitoring tool that helps people learn about the signs of skin cancer to watch for, raise awareness of how to protect their skin health, and connect with local dermatologists for an expert review.

In the Technology Square Research Building (TSRB) at the heart of Tech Square, the ATHENA Lab operates with a simple premise: research should not stop at theory. That mindset has defined the lab since 1998. Nearly three decades later, the lab has become a distinctive engine, producing world-leading hardware and addressing global grand challenges that move quickly from concepts to physical systems.

At 16, Sankalp Joshi is building an international sourcing and distribution company on a simple bet: the more boring the business, the better the opportunity. What started with a clothing brand in Manila now moves goods across the Philippines, India and the United States.

With over a decade of experience bringing together computer science and marketing technology, Zach Batastini, the Georgia founder of Derail Logic, knew firsthand about the challenges of navigating multiple marketing systems to manage websites, campaigns, and analytics. “Most small mom and pop businesses don’t have the tools or budget for larger marketing campaigns. I built MartechAI to support the growth of businesses that might not have large marketing budgets,” said Batastini.

The best salespeople carry a read on a deal that no CRM can see, a gut sense of whether it is alive or already lost long before the pipeline stage updates. Rishi Patel kept walking out of calls knowing exactly which deals were dead, then opening his CRM to find them all marked 70 percent likely to close by the reps. That gap gnawed at him for years before he did anything about it. Today, it is the founding premise of RevSage.

Small businesses make up 99.9% of US companies and drive 43.5% of the national GDP. Yet modern analytics tools have largely passed them by. Today 68% of Google searches end without a click, and more than half surface AI overviews. For a small business, that means the traffic numbers owners see may look nothing like the customers they actually reach. Few can afford to guess wrong. Teclaz answers the question every owner asks: who is my traffic?

For years, Katie Begando bought the same running shoes without trying them on. But during her half marathon training, a redesigned model left her frustrated. After reading blogs and trying multiple pairs, she realized she just wanted to talk to someone like herself, who shares her needs and preferences. That frustration led to the creation of Bluubird.

Kavya Mohankumar and Pranavi Gogineni’s startup journey started on an evening bus ride as college students. As they talked, a bigger question emerged: What do you see yourself doing in the future? Today, they are co-founders and CEOs of Kintic, which provides training data for humanoid robots. But Kintic wasn’t what they originally set out to build. Their first stop? Three pivots.

While Esco Eats built its reputation on a single dessert, their World Famous Apple Cobbler PIE, the company’s CEO and co-founder, Anita Lamb, sees the pie as a means rather than an end. “It’s an experience and a tool to engage people and build community. The pie is a vehicle.”

Tech Square is full of people you'd want to know and mostly haven't met yet. Maestro is a new ecosystem connection platform built to help you find and reach the right people across the community, whether that's a co-founder, a collaborator, or just the person who runs your trail every morning.

Anish Cheekati spent years on the pre-med track, gaining experience as a medical assistant and volunteering in clinics. His plans shifted after working with patients who often struggled to manage their various medications without guidance. This inspired him to create Voyage Health, a free AI-powered health guidance platform.

When high school students, Pranshu Raithatha and Harsh Mehta, needed to focus on their coursework, they realized they were scrolling on social media apps. After trying application after application, they asked a behavioral design question to explore the root of the challenge of focused attention as they set out to build Mivo Scrolling: “Can a brief pause at the exact moment someone opens social media help turn an impulse into an intentional choice?”

Earlier this year, Hypepotamus covered ATDC’s push to become a launchpad for Georgia-based AI companies. One of the companies building currently inside ATDC isn’t just building AI tools. They are a team ensuring organizations don’t get left behind in the AI Age.