Vietnamese student wins $75,000 Harvard startup prize for AI medical translation app

Pham Hong Linh, 33, is currently pursuing a master’s degree in design engineering at the Ivy League university.

On March 28 she received the top award in the Student Social Enterprise Track in the Harvard Business School’s New Venture Competition. According to the competition’s website, Linh is the first Vietnamese student to win the top prize in the event’s 25-year history.

She also won a US$75,000 cash prize. Her winning product, Lexi, is an AI-based medical translation tool. "I felt honored and emotional when my name was called on the Harvard stage," Linh says.

Pham Hong Linh. Photo courtesy of Linh

She has a bachelor’s degree in economics from Brown University and a master’s degree in visual communication from the Royal College of Art in the U.K. Before returning to academia, she worked as a designer at a self-driving car company.

The day before the contest final, her team presented their pitch in a 10-minute session to a panel of judges that included veteran investors and industry experts. She recalls being asked why she was passionate about the product.

As an only child who has lived abroad for 15 years, she hopes her mother will eventually join her in the U.S. Although her mother can speak some English, she is not fluent. Linh thought the idea of a translation tool could help her mother navigate medical appointments and daily life more independently.

With all four team members being immigrants, they decided to address a challenge often faced by older members of their communities: the language barrier. "Older immigrants who do not speak English struggle to integrate into society, especially when accessing healthcare," Linh says.

To understand the issue firsthand, she visited more than 20 hospitals and clinics in Boston and spoke with dozens of doctors, nurses and patients.

She finds that healthcare providers often struggle to find interpreters, especially for less common languages, and that existing translation apps are not equipped with accurate medical terminology. These limitations can lead to misdiagnosis and discomfort for patients who must share sensitive information through a third party.

Over the course of three months, she and her team developed Lexi to support six commonly spoken languages in Massachusetts state: Spanish, Portuguese, Vietnamese, Chinese, French, and Russian. Working with healthcare professionals, she compiled a database of frequently used medical terms, refining the app through multiple rounds of feedback.

What began as a class project evolved into a full-fledged startup. In March Lexi was one of 75 products to win a gold award at the iF Design Award, one of the world’s longest-running and most respected design competitions.

Linh and Siddharth UR, co-founders of Lexi, presented their product during the final round of the HBS New Venture Competition on March 28, 2025. Photo courtesy of Linh

She then founded a company and entered the HBS competition to seek funding. Thousands of participants from within and beyond Harvard joined, many of them already operating real-world products with user bases and investor backing. She initially had few expectations but grew more confident with each round she advanced.

"Winning feels like a validation of quality that will help me connect with investors," she says.

Dr. Lee Kaplan, director of the Institute of Sports Medicine at the University of Miami, praises Lexi after testing its early versions. He says the app’s simple interface and high accuracy allows smoother communication between doctors and patients.

"In emergency situations where no interpreter is available, Lexi becomes especially useful."

On April 5, Linh was awarded first place in the Female Founder Circle Pitch Competition, organized by Harvard Women in Entrepreneurship.

"I am continuing to improve Lexi and add support for rare languages," she says. "I hope it will one day be widely used in hospitals."