The first day of Wildcat Welcome can be different for everyone — but for two Northwestern engineering students, it led them to a business partner. 

McCormick junior students Victoria Israel and Trevor Abbott co-founded healthcare collection startup HaptE through The Garage. The startup has recently been recognized on Chicago Inno’s “Under 25” list, which recognizes rising entrepreneurs every year.

“It is for folks under 25 years old who are ambitious and accomplishing something interesting,” Mike Raab, executive director of The Garage, said. “Victoria and Trevor definitely check that box through their work on HaptE.”

The company is in the prototype and building stages of creating a data collection glove, which will gather information on hand movements for physical therapy and other industries. Israel said their leading question was always “What if we change the world through data collection?”

The pair, who both study mechanical engineering, came up with the idea the summer after their freshman year, according to Abbott. Originally, they wanted to create a glove for gaming and didn’t make the shift to healthcare until the following summer, when Abbott and Israel participated in The Garage’s 10-week entrepreneurial program called Jumpstart.

“We actually started interviewing people, and we asked them the question, ‘Would you actually buy this?’” Israel said. “We saw the value in our product was actually the data collection, and we switched.”

Abbott said this was a major turning point in their project. After talking to professionals in different industries, from medicine to manufacturing, the pivot has ultimately helped them learn, he said. 

The shift took them three weeks, 100 interviews with people from different industries and lots of notetaking, Israel said. 

“It’s very easy for people, especially engineers, to just come up with a cool technology and say, ‘We’re gonna build this and someone will buy it,’” Abbott said. “And that’s what we did, admittedly, at first. It took us some time to learn that a true product, a really good company, listens to its customers.”

Elisa Mitchell, assistant director of operations and finance at The Garage, said she’s witnessed their team dynamic after serving as one of their mentors.

Mitchell said she often sees the pair exhibit mutual support and rapport, which helps them to thrive as business partners.

“They just spur each other on to do better and go faster and reach greater heights,” Mitchell said. “They blow me away.”

Israel said she credits a majority of HaptE’s success to The Garage’s resources. Jumpstart and the Propel Program, which awards female entrepreneurs specifically, provided the funding that allows HaptE to operate. 

Abbott and Israel were also selected for The Garage’s Little Joe Ventures Fellowship in 2024. The Garage has become the setting for a “second life” on top of full-time schoolwork, Israel said.

“The Garage is just our home,” Israel said. “When we needed funding, The Garage was here for us. When we needed mentoring, they were there for us.”

In 2024, Abbott and Israel were both leaders of an NU team that was awarded the highest honor at NASA’s Breakthrough, Innovative and Game-changing Idea Challenge forum. The project was with Northwestern University Space Technology and Rocketry Society (NUSTARS), a club that the pair were involved in before diving into their HaptE project. 

Raab said that in the year he has known the pair, he has seen their passion for “making the world a better place.”

“They have incredible work ethics,” Raab said. “These are difficult themes to bring an idea to life and to market, but I can see that they’re energized by the potential, and they believe that they have agency in the world and can make these things real.”

Abbott said the pair have decided that HaptE is a long-term endeavor — and if it doesn’t work out, he and Israel will create something else.

Ultimately, Israel and Abbott said their teamwork has helped make these achievements possible. They have shared an entrepreneurial spirit since they met during Wildcat Welcome, Abbott said.

“We had a lot of the same goals of wanting to create a company and make a really big impact in the world and do something bigger than ourselves,” Abbott said. “We always like to say we don’t want to be another gear in a machine.”

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