The Innovation and Entrepreneurship Department spring capstone teams pitched their ideas to a panel of judges on Monday, April 30th. Teams are judged based on their ability to prove the viability of their idea, how well they have developed a go to market strategy, their understanding of the industry they will compete in and most importantly how quickly they will grow, become profitable and deliver a return on investment.
Safe Siren won this semester’s ranking as the top capstone team with Med App Solutions as runner up. Safe Siren is a patent pending hand held personal safety alarm co-founded by Cooper Hart, Katy Cleminson, Axel Kanakan and Victor Figuereo. Safe Siren won based on a solid innovative idea, understanding of the personal safety industry, a strong customer acquisition model and potential for significant profit.
Med App Solutions developed a smartphone mobile application, Can I Eat This? Can I Eat This? would use a nationally recognized database and bar code scanning technology to help users determine whether a food is contraindicated for a person based on their allergies and dietary restrictions. Med App Solutions was co-founded by Sarah Fisher, Tom Robbins, Aaron Conley and Brandon Biaterana.
Two additional teams competed with Safe Siren and Med App Solutions this semester, Goru Events and LiveEasy Diabetes. Both teams developed smartphone mobile applications. Goru Events was co-founded by Lamar Duffy, Zach Eaton and Sam Roleru to create an event ecosystem for users based on the geographic location. LiveEasy Diabetes was co-founded by Mitchell Renshaw, Andrew De Vito, Kate Minister and Chris Johnson to help diabetics monitor, manage, research and communicate all of their important medical information related to their disease.
The judges for the spring entrepreneurship capstone course included Mr. Dana Levenson, CFO of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, Ms. Ann Kirkpatrick Tripp, Chief Investment Officer at The Hanover Insurance Group, Mr. Andrew Moss an entrepreneur, investor and strategist at Wingate Advisors, LLC and Rick Segal ’12 who led his team Bella Burger to a capstone course competition win in Fall 2011.
Any student interested in developing their ideas further is welcome to contact the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Department at innovation@clarku.edu.
