Texas A&M University’s Mays Business School has named 12 finalists in its AI Venture Velocity Challenge, narrowed from the 531 teams that initially entered the competition’s inaugural year and the 27 semifinalists announced in July.

Among the finalists is Matthew Schaefer, who is from Katy. Schaefer, a graduate of James E. Taylor High School Class of 2020, recently moved back to Katy and lives in the Morton Ranch area. His parents also live in the Katy area near South Mason Road. He is currently pursuing his Master of Business Administration at Mays Business School with certifications in business intelligence analytics, marketing, and supply chain management.

The 12 finalists will compete Sept. 26 at Mays Business School for $175,000 in non-dilutive funding, including a $100,000 top prize, in a live final open to the public.

The challenge, organized by Mays’ Center for Applied Entrepreneurship and Innovation, was built to reward a different kind of founder. Rather than scoring teams on stage presence or product demos, judges evaluate finalists against a published rubric weighing problem significance, learning velocity and experimentation rigor, how effectively teams leveraged AI, evidence of real venture progress, responsible and ethical design, and how well founders adapted when the evidence told them to.

The finalists’ ventures span industries from agriculture to healthcare to assistive technology, including a team using AI to help prevent livestock mortality on farms and another working to match cancer patients with the right clinical trials. Several finalists already have paying customers, signed letters of intent or pilot commitments, demonstrating how disciplined experimentation can lead to tangible market validation.

Schaefer’s project is related to the company he founded and for which he now works. OsageMD is building a HIPAA-compliant case-management platform for medical lien financing workflows. The team advanced by combining held-out technical testing with direct workflow research, economic-buyer interviews, and meaningful interest in paid pilots.

At the Sept. 26 finals, each team will walk a panel of industry-leading judges, and spectators, through the assumptions they tested, the evidence they gathered, and the pivots that evidence forced.

After the finals, Mays will release a full report drawing on the public dashboard of experimentation patterns, pivot rates, and AI use across all 531 teams that entered this year, one of the most detailed public datasets to date on how student founders are actually using AI to build companies, not just talk about it.

About Mays Business School Texas A&M University’s Mays Business School is building a better future through business. By providing leadership-centered, experiential education to more than 8,000 undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral students in accounting, finance, management, management information systems, marketing, and supply chain management, Mays consistently ranks among the top public business schools nationally for its programs and faculty research.