Companies Learn What’s Possible During Fall 2025 Capstone Program

The Ying Wu College of Computing (YWCC) Capstone Program has been a defining benchmark in NJIT’s signature experiential learning approach for senior and select master’s students for over two decades. This graduation requirement tasks students with providing solutions to real-world challenges as entrepreneurs or in collaboration with sponsor companies. Although some students opt to innovate independently, many others will gain valuable insight into how different industries function through partnerships with major corporations and startups—and these organizations are more than impressed and grateful for the results.

Pharmaceutical giant Merck has championed capstone sponsorship for several years and continually praised the work, dedication and ingenuity of its student project teams. Last year’s team was invited to the company’s global headquarters in Rahway, NJ to present to senior leadership.

This year’s assignment streamlined structured project labeling.

Director of Global Labeling Operations & Supplier Management Melissa Brown observed, “[The students] learn and I learn. It’s a mutual education experience. I learn what’s possible, what can be done, and what we might not think about.” 

“I’m very happy!” she responded when asked for feedback on the project. 

Lindsey Nagy, founder & managing partner at Nagy Ventures, has likewise been a long-term partner in the capstone program and takes pride in having mentored their professional growth as a means to “give back” to students who aspire to follow in his footsteps as startup entrepreneurs. Parents recently told him that they were “touched” by the level of passion and commitment to coaching their son and all who work under him. 

To date, Nagy has hired 30 NJIT graduates through the various companies he owns, including two entire teams who worked with him on the front and backend of the Eco-Strategy Client Sustainability Portal 3.0., a venture with his company Eco-Enterprise, Inc. 

“These students are wizards who take an idea and turn it into a ‘wow.’ There’s no better way to put it. One word says it all,” he said. 

Absolute JS is one of two of Nagy’s latest endeavors and is essentially the 10th iteration of an ongoing project with different capstone teams, beginning with Eco-Strategy. According to project manager Jorge Sanchez, a senior web & information systems student, it allows anyone to be a developer without a technical background. 

Nagy added, “It will be faster, more secure and completely accessible for non-coders.”

Any organization from major corporations to small businesses can submit a proposal to be considered as a capstone sponsor. Even an independently owned restaurant like Newark’s A Taste of the Caribbean is having its manual processes automated with a custom CRM replacement solution that makes everything from online ordering to awarding customer incentives and more as advanced as its corporate chain competitors. 

The capstone program, under the leadership of Osama Eljibiri, director of YWCC Capstone & RWC Programs, has become a recognized model for other institutions to emulate. 

Student teams must satisfy a series of milestones with their company and fellow campus partners during the semester. Final projects are then demonstrated to a panel of judges comprised of NJIT alumni and industry professionals. Winning teams are recognized across six panels during a ceremony following the capstone showcase for family, friends, faculty and industry. As has become customary, Michael Geraghty, head of cybersecurity for the state of New Jersey, and a longtime NJIT collaborator, heads the panel. 

Among the many guests who have attended the showcases are some of the New York metro area’s leading peer institutions, including Columbia, NYU, Steven’s Tech, Rutgers and Pace, the latter of which was also a sponsor this year. 

Eljabiri remarked during the spring 2025 capstone showcase: “My esteemed colleagues who attended expressed deep admiration for the program’s structure and impact. Their remarks reaffirmed that what we’ve built here is not only working – it’s setting a new standard. We are now a model recognized across the region,”

Elisa Charters, sponsor of Yogo Social and a member of NJIT’s Board of Trustees, added, “This model should be adopted by every school without question. Each year, I am amazed by the exceptional talent this program develops—individuals who transform ideas into reality and consistently exceed expectations.”

Thank you to all capstone sponsors, with particular mention of ZV Press, whose co-founder is alumna Pradnya Desai ’22, also a software engineer at Microsoft.

Additional thanks to this semester’s industry judges: Swapna Chappidi (EcoPantryPal), Jyoti Kunal Shah (ADP), Richard Thompson (Senior Staff Network Expert Engineer), Jenene Hatchard (TRC – PSE&G contractor), Sivanagaraju Gadiparthi (ADP), Edwin Brockner (Valley Bank), Michael Geraghty (NJCCIC), Kendi Bawah (Aramark), Neil Evans (AT&T), Michael Tuma (Berkeley Varitronics Systems, Inc.), Nicole Campos (Newark Board of Education/NJIT), Alex Blinder (Board of Education), Indu Subramanian (Wells Fargo), Marie Wang (NJIT Alumna/Medidata Solutions (former)), Elsie Akorli (Aramark), and Noujan Fakhri (EnTech Engineering). 

And the Fall 2025 Capstone Program Winners are:

Panel 1 – FitTrack-Personalized Fitness Journal & Coach (Belal Embaby, Tobey Chan, Dominic LaRocca, Kristofer Marquez)

Panel 2 – CISCO Team 2 – Project 6 (Justin Nguyen, Leonardo Matute, Emiris Germosen)

Panel 3 – Research Quality Assessment System (Syed Shahid, Oscar Callo Von Platen, Paul Ellameh)

Panel 4 – Petwell-Pet Health Management AI Platform (Alyson Matecki, Patricia Guizar, Aidan Gallagher, Snehal Nikalje, Ashwini Kanade)

Panel 5 – Software Automation-NJIT YWCC Capstone Website (Michael Perrette, Harshita Chalamani, Tayyab Nabeel)

Panel 6 – Mindflow-AI-Guided Study & Research Platform (Swapnil Deb, Adonis Pujols, Jesus Garcia, Datha Bindumalam)

NJIT and the Ying Wu College of Computing gratefully acknowledge 2025 presenting sponsor Databank for supporting student professional development and innovation.

For information on becoming a capstone sponsor, please contact Dina Anello, executive director of external relations, at dina.m.anello@njit.edu or 973-596-5332.