Anino Oritsejafor and Jaenelle Lauture Win 2026 Learning Levers Grand Prize
Students from five teams pitched their tools designed to support student learning for a chance to win up to $10,000. The James A. Kelly Learning Levers Prize is an innovation competition based in the Marsal Family School of Education that is designed to challenge students to invent digital tools with the potential to significantly improve student learning.
MBA candidates Anino Oritsejafor and Jaenelle Lauture, founders of Krik Krak, won the grand prize and were awarded $10,000 to continue to build out their product. Krik Krak is a shared reading platform connecting children (K–6) and trusted adults in real-time synchronized reading sessions, with in-the-moment prompts that help caregivers guide comprehension and phonics.
Development awards ranging from $1,000 to $4,000 were presented to four teams:
WildLight $1,000
Milo Lyndon
Wildlight is a narratively driven exploration game that teaches the importance of environmental stewardship and climate awareness to anyone interested. The way this game could be implemented in classrooms is flexible, with opportunities for long- or short-term exploration. It could be assigned as an individual project to complete at home or during class time. Players are encouraged to explore different biomes, learning about different endangered plants and animals in each.
LevelUp Living $2,000
Molly Yang, Samantha Pratt, Rebecca Liu
LevelUp Living is a mobile educational game that teaches young people how to respond to common household problems and emergencies through interactive simulations. We aim to target teenage, mostly high school students who will move away for college or work in the future, to transition them into the world of living independently. LevelUp Living is designed by a multidisciplinary team bringing together intersecting disciplines in educational technology.
MotiMuse $3,500
Julia Huth, Katelyn Abellera, Summer Parise, Zejun Li, Samantha Pui, Leanne Cheng
MotiMuse is a music practice app that motivates students of all ages. By gamifying practice, tracking progress, and giving educators insight into student habits, it makes practicing more engaging, effective, and consistent.
RoboCrafter $4,000
Xiaohao Xu, Xiangdong Wang, Changhe Chen
A U-M team dedicated to making robot design accessible to everyone — through AI, simulation, and hands-on physical replicas. RoboCrafter brings that mission into K–12 classrooms, letting students prompt, build, and test real AI-designed soft robots.