Whereas braids are a well-liked, common protecting fashion that has myriad deserves and dates again throughout cultures for 1000’s of years, getting them is a pricey and prolonged course of that also takes hours — even days in some instances — to finish. That might all change with the assistance of robots.
Halo Braid, an organization that has produced a hair braiding robotic, gained the 2025 President’s Innovation Problem Award earlier this 12 months on the Harvard Innovation Lab, Harvard’s startup incubator that helps pupil and alumni ventures by way of funding, mentorship, and assets, and has plans to open a salon earlier than the 12 months’s finish.
The corporate, based by Harvard alumni Yinka Ogunbiyi and David Afolabi, took dwelling the $75,000 grand prize within the Alumni & Associates Open Observe class.
“Think about if each time you bought your hair lower, it took six hours, price two to $300 and gave your hair stylist arthritis at age 29,” Ogunbiyi mentioned through the startup competitors. “That is what it’s wish to get your hair braided.”
An avid braid devotee herself, she added that she is aware of this from private expertise.
“I do know this firsthand as a result of I’ve worn braids all my life, and after I braided my very own hair for the primary time, it took me 4 days,” she mentioned. “However I’m not alone, as a result of hair braiding is now the preferred coiffure for 20 million People who expertise this depressing course of each eight weeks. And but, braiding hasn’t seen innovation since braiding was invented 5,000 years in the past.”
Halo Braid, a patent-pending innovation, is the primary robotic ever devised to complete braids after a stylist begins them, decreasing the time it takes from hours to minutes. The machine, which resembles a cream and gold standing dryer, makes use of machine studying to attain professional-quality outcomes at 5 instances the velocity, enabling stylists to develop their companies with out compromising their palms.
Ogunbyi mentioned the robotic will, “make braiding joyful, not painful.”
The machine has already been put to make use of, efficiently finishing 1000’s of braids, together with Ogunbiyi’s personal hair. Over the past 18 months, the workforce has constructed greater than 450 prototypes as they refined the robotic to braid actual human hair.
With the $75,000 prize, Halo Braid is gearing as much as open a salon in Boston to pilot and scale the expertise forward of wider manufacturing later this 12 months. Within the meantime, the corporate has opened a waitlist for stylists and salons excited by including the robotic to their arsenal as soon as it turns into commercially obtainable.
“We’re excited to comprehend our mission of saving billions of hours spent braiding hair annually,” Ogunbyi added. “And remodel an business that hasn’t modified in 1000’s of years.”
