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Senior Sai Srivatsav Gutala has been busy during his time at ����AV, and he has a lot of big ideas.��

In 2019, as a sophomore, the major started a student club called the Inventors and Innovations Team (IIT) with one of his classmates, major Nicholas Paschke.

“We wanted to give students an opportunity to build whatever it is that tickles their mind,” he said of the club that still meets in the makerspace at the in Horizon Hall on the Fairfax Campus. “As long as it's reasonable and innovative, we agreed to it and tried to create it. Since IIT started, our vision has been to have multiple teams working on building different projects at the same time.”��

Current IIT projects include a fire-detecting drone that could help with wildfires and a sensing cane for the visually impaired. Some ideas will fail, but this doesn’t bother Gutala, who graduates with a bachelor of science this month. It is the ideas themselves and the execution that interest him.

As he approached his senior year, Gutala��wanted to take things��to the next level and founded the hardware hackathon, HackOverflow.

“Its purpose was��all about giving students the hands-on opportunity��to create something grand,” said Gutala, who recently served as the chair of��HackOverflow’s��executive committee and is now an advisor.��

They partnered with an existing hackathon at Mason, , and��Mason’s��'s executive director��Kammy��Sanghera. The event took place in March 2022 at the MIX.��

While many hackathons focus on coding, HackOverflow had students using the MIX’s 3D printer, soldering station, and other equipment to create prototypes of their ideas. Gutala said it is one of only a handful of hardware hackathons in the country.

“Throughout the process, Sai ensured that participants of HackOverflow had the resources and mentors to design prototypes,” said Sanghera. “From building his executive team to seeking sponsorships for the event, Sai was professional and diligent. Through initiatives like IIT and HackOverflow, Sai generated opportunities for his peers to change the world positively.”

Gutala has also started a company called Alphawave and has been one of the student entrepreneurs in the MIX’s incubator space. With Alphawave, Gutala��is developing appearance-customizable apparel. He began with footwear—and he already has a prototype—but Gutala sees this as the beginning of using technology to customize personal items for self-expression.

Through the incubator program, Gutala was able to have his own space within the MIX and use of the program’s professional development resources, such as the mini program offered to Mason student entrepreneurs. Gutala said he found the mini “the most helpful thing ever.”

“ICAP focuses on finding your ideal customer that will be loyal to your company,” said Gutala. “If a business can understand their customer, everything else is easy.”