Three startups, with co-founders who utilized the ANTrepreneur Center, placed in the 2021 Beall Student Design and Butterworth Product Development competitions.
The Beall Student Design Competition at the Henry Samueli School of Engineering welcomes projects that involve the development of hardware and devices, while the Butterworth Product Development Competition at the Donald Bren School of Information & Computer Sciences is geared toward the development of software. Open to all UCI students, the competitions promote the creation of new technologies with the potential for commercialization and offer prizes of $10,000, $6,500 and $3,500 for teams that place first, second and third, respectively.
Startup team forMED Technologies won first place in the seventh annual Beall Student Design Competition. The startup seeks to improve glaucoma treatment with an at-home eye pressure monitoring system. Co-founder Raphael “Francis” Aguas — an undergraduate research assistant at the Khine Lab — credits the ANTrepreneur Center and its manager, Jaune Odombrown, for preparing his team for successes such as this one.
“The ANTrepreneur Center programs have been an invaluable part of our success in this competition,” said Aguas. “Jaune’s feedback on our pitch deck and overall guidance in developing and validating our business plan have been critical to our company’s growth. Additionally, through the ANTrepreneur Center, we have been able to expand our network of experienced entrepreneurs, medical device experts, and like-minded student entrepreneurs — all of whom have helped us advance forMED to where it is today.”
The forMED Technologies team plans to use the prize money to fund prototype development and secure their intellectual property.
Startup team Grasshopperfund won first place in 11th annual Butterworth Product Development Competition. The team was also recently selected as a semifinalist in the Blackstone Launchpad and Techstars Network startup pitch competition. Grasshopperfund is the first rewards-based crowdfunding platform for youth-led startups that also provides coaching and mentorship opportunities for young entrepreneurs. Founder and CEO Caitlyn Yang plans to use the team’s $10,000 prize for key marketing, legal and education resources as they prepare for the next stages of growth.
“After seeing the positive impact we could make first-hand through workshops and events we’ve held and the community we’ve built, we decided to enter the competition and are grateful that the judges resonated with our mission to bring ideas to life, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, or socioeconomic standing,” said Yang, who also serves as the ANTrepreneur Center’s Student Associate Manager.
Startup Nutripair, co-founded by Catlin Tran and Bing Mo, took home the second-place prize in the Butterworth Product Development Competition. Nutripair is a health and wellness startup designed to pair individuals with personalized nutrition solutions to help them make informed decisions for tackling chronic illnesses through dietary means. Members of the Nutripair team have taken part in the ANTrepreneur Center’s Innovation & Entrepreneurship Internship.
“The Innovation and Entrepreneurship Internship and one-on-one consulting greatly impacted Nutripair’s progress,” said Tran. “The cohort fostered a collaborative environment of startup founders who were all willing to help and provide wonderful insights from ideation, business development, to pitch deck.”
Nutripair’s prize winnings will go toward the technical development of their minimum viable product and incorporation fees.
Coincidentally, all three winning teams are recipients of the UCI Beall Applied Innovation Creativity & Entrepreneurship Scholarship — a collaboration between Applied Innovation and the Office of Financial Aid and Scholarships which awards up to $3,000 to any UCI student with an inventive solution to a community need or problem.
Learn more about the ANTrepreneur Center.
Main Graphic: Kate Wokowsky