News

ULaunch

On Saturday and Sunday, October 24-25, UMass’ Entrepreneurship Club hosted its marquee event – ULaunch – a two-day hackathon teams are formed, businesses are built and $1000.00 in equity-free funding is warded. Programming includes workshops, key note speakers and mentorship.

First-place winner SnakeTape is a reusable alternative to clear plastic shin tape often used in hockey, soccer, football, and more. Not only is this a cost effective solution, but it also eliminates huge amounts of plastic waste. Team: James Marathas (social thought and political economy), Ethan Harper (natural sciences), Ritik Shah (engineering)

Second-place winner Newstopia is here to help consumers bypass fake news and stay positive while staying up to date. Team: Ayush Khandelwal (computer science), Aayushi Berry (resource economics)

Third-place winner FoodShip is here to end the terror of eating or ordering outside food. With over 240 million cooks who don’t have a platform to share their culinary skills with food lovers, FoodShip is determined to connect food-preneurs around the world with home food enthusiasts. Team: Heta Shah (electrical engineering), Meet Agrawal (computing and Informatics)

Hult Prize

Hult Prize is the No. 1 social entrepreneurship challenge in the world that crowd-sources ideas from students by challenging them to solve a pressing social issue around topics such as: food security, water access, energy, and education. UMass’ campus competition was held Wednesday, November 4.

The winning team – FoodShip – has created a connecting network for food-preneurs and home food lovers, provides a platform for selling home-cooked forte. Apart from delivering appetizing and hygienic food, FoodShip also creates job opportunities in numerous segments. Team: Harshini Parakh (biology), Heta Shah (electrical engineering), Meet Agrawal (computing and Informatics)

Grinspoon Pitch!

The Grinspoon Entrepreneurship Initiative’s first online, fully remote regional pitch competition was held Tuesday, November 17. Twenty-one students from area colleges delivered 60-second pitches to an audience of their peers in Zoom breakout rooms. The following UMass-based startups competed:

rSteam (Ian Goodine): Plastic is everywhere. It lives forever - so it's perfect to build with and awful to trash. We've reimagined recycling as a personal experience where you input your bottle into a machine which recycles it down to raw flakes in front of you. These flakes can then be reprocessed.

MicrobeBlaster (Phoebe Lasic-Ellis): eliminates catheter-born bacterial infections before they begin and will save hospitals thousands of lives and billions of dollars. The antimicrobial titanium dioxide mats line catheters, kill microbes on contact, and stop the cycle of antibiotic resistance.

FoodShip (Harshini Parakh): A connecting network for foodpreneurs and home food lovers, FoodShip provides a platform for selling home-cooked forte. Apart from delivering appetizing and hygienic food, FoodShip also creates job opportunities in numerous segments.

EthnicWave (Ananya Rao): A platform that helps users rent out an appropriate outfit according to the event. Be it a cultural event like a Diwali celebration in India or a Traditional English wedding. People can list their outfits on the app and users can rent them out for the special event. Pretty inexpensive on the user’s end as it is much better than buying an outfit that would hardly be worn twice. Also a great way to earn through your clothes without much effort.

Small Space Design (Finn O'Connor): Reinventing the roof rack for cars, trucks, and vans- that's what we do. What makes ours special? It is 100% modular, meaning that there are endless possibilities to change its shape, function, and accessories. Made out of slotted aluminum, it is ultra-light and easy to

Strape (James Marathas): Using biodegradable materials, Stape is a team of hockey players planning to revolutionize the hockey industry by providing a sustainable alternative to traditional clear tape.