Engineering graduate students transform hackathon idea into AI tool with startup potential
Dhruv Savla M.S. ’26 is no stranger to the frustration that comes with complex paperwork. When he moved from India to the United States for college seven years ago, he remembers being overwhelmed by difficult forms he didn’t fully understand just to enroll in school or get employment authorization.
“As an international student, I would sometimes look at forms and feel confused,” says Savla. “I’d ask myself, ‘What exactly does this question mean?’ or ‘Is this optional?’” At the time, he recognized this was a problem but hadn’t figured out how to solve it yet.
Savla brought those experiences to a conversation with his friends, Ankush Rai M.S. ’26, Anmol Sharma M.S. ’26, and Siddharth Bhat M.S. ’26, who are also international graduate students majoring in computer science at SA¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½. They all connected on the shared pain point of how difficult it can be to fill out government forms, and collaborated to create a solution: , an online tool that helps elderly and non-tech savvy individuals complete government forms using voice interaction.
“We wanted to create something that could be completed within a short amount of time and still be impactful and meaningful,” says Sharma, who conceptualized the idea with Bhat and worked specifically on coding the AI that converts users’ speech into PDF output. “It may sound boring to work with forms, but this is important. FormWhisper can improve the way people get things done in their everyday lives.”
When a user uploads a PDF, FormWhisper uses AI to identify fillable fields, generate easy-to-understand questions, and prompt users to respond aloud. Then, the application transcribes their responses and automatically fills in the appropriate fields with their information.
The team came together to take FormWhisper from idea to reality during the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) , a 24-hour competition sponsored by SA¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½’s Ciocca Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The hackathon brought together nearly 500 students from SA¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ and colleges across the state to solve pressing social issues with creativity and code. This year, 79 teams competed for a series of prizes, and FormWhisper earned one of them: the Future Unicorn Award, given to the project most likely to become a startup.
The team worked for nearly 20 hours straight during the hackathon, getting only three hours of sleep before presenting to the judges. Afterward, they went home to rest and later checked the winners page, where they realized they had won the award for the project most likely to become a startup, along with a $1000 prize.
“When we first started building FormWhisper, we didn’t think we could win, so we were excited when we got the news,” says Rai. “What mattered most to us was building something people could use.”
A week after the hackathon, Rai and his team participated in a Pitch-a-thon, co-hosted by INFORMS, ACM, and the Ciocca Center, where students pitched their projects to venture capitalist judges to get feedback and compete for additional prizes.
“This model reflects how we try to bridge technical innovation and entrepreneurial development—helping students move from a weekend prototype toward something that could potentially become a startup,” says Cindy Cooper, program director for the Ciocca Center.
The team said judges didn’t select FormWhisper for this round, noting that while it has potential, there is still opportunity to expand its capabilities beyond what existing AI tools could offer.
“This field has a lot of scope. We definitely have a chance to break into it,” says Rai. “Large language models aren’t specialized in what FormWhisper does. If we put all of our efforts and energy into this project, there is still a chance we could grow it into something useful.”
Currently, the team is working on stabilizing a beta model that will fix some initial issues, like accurately filling checkmark fields. In its first phase, they plan to support simple fillable PDFs as well as more complex legal documents, like applications for government assistance or financial aid.
“After we run a beta preview, we can survey users and decide how much potential FormWhisper has. If we can generate some recurring income from this, then we can consider making it a startup,” Sharma explains.
As some members of the team prepare to embark on careers in Silicon Valley after graduating this spring, and others stay on at SA¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ to finish their studies, they say they plan to continue working together on FormWhisper as a side project.
“If you have an idea and you believe it can actually help people, then it’s important to go for it,” says Rai. “We did that with FormWhisper and we’re excited to continue building.”
The mission of the Computer Science and Engineering Department is to graduate students of competence, conscience, and compassion, who are prepared to excel in the field of computing. Our programs combine the theoretical foundations of computing with the practical engineering knowledge vital to industry.
