CFCI Updates

You bring the challenge. We bring the talent. Together, we build the future of product.

Product Lab Kicks Off with Three Innovative Partners!

This semester, Product Lab is thrilled to collaborate with three innovative partners this semester: Rail Inc., GameRun, and CFCI! Rail Inc is the railroad industry's innovative and reliable resource for technology solutions. GameRun aims to empower coaches and athletes with intelligent, data-driven insights that elevate training, optimize performance and minimize injury risk. CFCI Innovation is an LLM-powered intake system turning partner ideas into structured proposals. We’re excited to help transform these ideas into impactful, real-world solutions.

Product Lab Highlight: SimPatient

Modernizing Medical Education Through AI-Guided Patient Simulations: SimPatient is an AI enabled patient-simulator chatbot designed to improve medical student training, as well as diagnostic & patient care outcomes

Founders@Pratt: PROTECT3D

Started by three former Duke Football players, PROTECT3D was developed to create customized bracing to help their teammates recover from injury. The technology, which was a senior capstone project for Duke Engineering, received early funding through the GoBIG award that helped them turn their idea into a business. Today, PROTECT3D has grown into a 12-person startup that 3D prints customized braces for professional sports teams, orthopedic patients, and military service members nationwide. The company recently raised a seed round of capital and received a Direct-to-Phase II DoD SBIR contract to continue their growth and technology development. Headquartered in the BRiDGE incubator, the company maintains strong ties to the Duke and the Durham communities.

Duke’s Design Defense Studio Trains Troops to Think Like Professional Innovators

Intensive program gives service members the tools to pitch, prototype and scale defense innovations that address real battlefield needs while earning credit toward a graduate engineering certificate or master’s degree.

 

Interested in joining next year's cohort? Stay up to Date!

Clark Scholars: Welcome

Class of 2028!

The Duke Clark Scholars Program welcomed its eighth cohort with a five-week Summer Bridge Program held from July 14 to August 15, 2025. During this hybrid experience, Scholars were introduced to the academic content, pace, and expectations of college-level courses; participated in cohort-building activities both on and off campus; and explored Duke’s campus, resources, and the broader Durham community.

Clark Scholars: Introducing Clark Captains, Dylan & Kate!

"The Clark Scholars Program has truly become a family for us, surrounding us with people who push us to grow, celebrate our successes, and support us through challenges. It has also opened doors we never imagined- like the chance to work abroad in Cape Town, South Africa, where we learned how engineering and entrepreneurship can create lasting impact. Those experiences shaped both our technical skills and our sense of belonging and purpose. As Captains, we’re excited to give back to the community that has given us so much, helping future scholars feel the same connection and inspiration, and hoping to return at least a little of what the program has given us!"

Pratt Blueprint 2025

In this episode of the Dean's Minutes, join Dean Lynch and Professor Steve McClelland as they discuss how the Christensen Family Center for Innovation (CFCI) at Duke is translating ideas from the classroom into real-world solutions through student entrepreneurship, community partnerships, and interdisciplinary design.

 

DUKE | WILKINSON ENGINEERING BUILDING | 534 RESEARCH DRIVE DURHAM, NC