Hosted by the Berthiaume Center for Entrepreneurship, the four-part Innovation Challenge continued with The Semifinal on Wednesday, February 28. In front of a panel of four judges, 12 student-led teams gave five-minute pitches describing their ventures and participated in a 10-minute Q&A session. The judges selected seven teams to advance to Innovation Challenge: The Final (April 5), where $65,000 in seed money will be distributed.
AdOutreach, created by Aleric Heck and Davis McVay (marketing), provides YouTube advertising services, online workshops and an automated platform to help businesses achieve meaningful results with digital video advertising. eBiologics, pitched by Alexander Smith (PhD student, biomedical engineering), is focused on providing early detection of chronic diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, using a skin sensor patch that monitors biomarkers in your sweat.
FootCare by Nurses, LLC, developed by Kate Clayton-Jones (PhD student, nursing, is an agency of board-certified foot care nurses that provide a skilled nursing service of medical grade foot care, enhancing overall health and well-being. Guide Dog, designed by Achintya Kumar (engineering), Rohan Teja Ramesh (finance), Shardool Pathak and Varun Iyer (computer science), is a navigation system which allows the blind and visually impaired to commute independently by recognizing people, objects and text.
KINASE, Inc., powered by Byung Kim and Yubing Sun (professors, mechanical and industrial engineering), Nariman Banaei (PhD student, mechanical and industrial engineering) and Amir Ali Jazayeri (MBA student, business statistics, Hofstra University), is a low-cost, point-of-care platform for early diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. Phytos Therapeutics, headed by Ryan Landis (PhD student, chemistry), designs, develops and licenses groundbreaking nanotechnology to address the growing dangers of infectious disease. TernBooking, created by Austin Rohlfing (actuarial mathematics), Paul Maurais (computer science), Noah Friedman (finance) and Sepehr Sokhanvar (computer science), is an online travel bank that matches customers a percentage of their savings towards travel.
The Innovation Challenge will commence with The Final on April 5.
2017-18 Sponsors: Ernst & Young, The Heiser Family, Norman “Bud” Robertson, Kumar Ganapathy, Jeff Glassman, Darn It!, John & Sally Burke