Techstars Startup Weekend: AI Ideas in Action · Winston-Salem · October 2026 · Participant, creative lead of the AiKagi team
AiKagi: From dating to connection
- See
- Feel
- Think
The brief
Techstars Startup Weekend: AI Ideas in Action is a 54-hour event at Sparq in Winston-Salem's Innovation Quarter, presented by Vision to Venture, where teams develop, validate and pitch a new venture with support from mentors. I took part as a participant.
Our team came in with an idea for a dating app that would introduce people to cultures outside their usual dating pool, starting with a short intro quiz. We had one weekend to shape it, brand it and pitch it to judges.
My role
I was the creative lead on a team of five, working alongside a team lead, a data scientist, a finance lead and a software engineer. I led the research into who we were building for, designed the logo and app icon, and guided the intro experience: its length, its color palette and its wording.
My approach
When I looked for the root of the problem, it wasn't dating. It was connection. That came straight from my work on the Cost of Loneliness Project, where I'd spent time with how lonely people are and how hard it is to meet someone new. The research on dating apps kept pointing the same way: women's safety, low trust in the apps, and how most people meet each other now. So I pushed the team to build around safety and connection, not just dating.
The research
What I found when I dug in. Figures come from my AI-assisted research reports, which name their sources.
The loneliness epidemic
About half of U.S. adults report feeling lonely.
U.S. Surgeon General advisory, 2023
A lack of social connection raises the risk of early death by about 29%.
U.S. Surgeon General advisory, 2023
Modern dating for women
54% of women who date online feel overwhelmed by the number of messages they get.
Pew Research Center
60% of women under 35 who date online say someone kept contacting them after they said they were not interested.
Pew Research Center
The dating cliff
Only about 30% of single adults aged 22 to 35 are actively dating, though 86% expect to marry.
State of Our Unions, Wheatley Institute and Institute for Family Studies, 2026
Attendance at offline singles events, run clubs and hobby groups rose 49%.
"Niche to Meet You" trend report, 2024
Process
Research
I used AI to dig into the issue quickly: safety on dating apps, trust, and how people actually meet today. Then I brought what mattered back to the team.
The turn
We reframed AiKagi from a dating app to a connection app with safety at the center.
The intro experience
I advised on how long the opening quiz should be, the colors and the words, so the first minutes felt welcoming and safe, not like a test. It became ten quick questions about values, traditions and everyday life that suggest cultures you might enjoy learning about, from a pool of 60 countries, with answers saved anonymously.
The brand
I designed the logo and the app icon by hand, without AI.
The pitch
I helped refine the deck and the presentation.
The work
Results
We didn't place. The judges said it was still unclear whether AiKagi was a dating app or something else. The team went separate ways after the weekend, and AiKagi was shut down.
The feedback was fair, and it taught me the most. We changed what the product was, but our pitch still told the old story.
Reflection
With more time, I'd rebuild the pitch around one clear message: AiKagi as an answer to the loneliness epidemic, an app that makes it easy to widen your circle and find real connection, safely. The idea was there. The story needed to catch up.