BPC 2015 grand prize winning team Vie Diagnostics pitches judges during the 2015 Investment Round.
A powerful catalyst for turning student innovation into new ventures, the Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship’s UW Business Plan Competition has selected the 36 teams competing for top honors at the nineteenth annual BPC. A total of 93 teams with more than 300 students from 10 colleges and universities submitted their initial entries to the first round of the BPC. Now the top 36 teams representing six universities from across Washington state will present their ideas to more than 275 judges from the Seattle entrepreneurial community at the Investment Round of the competition on Wednesday, April 27.
The BPC is best known for the visibility it provides student entrepreneurs and the connections that are made among judges and students. This year, a total of $85,000 will be awarded, from the $25K Herbert B. Jones Foundation Grand Prize, the $10K WRF Capital Second Place Prize to the seven $2.5K Best Idea Prizes. This year’s Best Idea Prizes include REI’s Best Retail Innovation Idea and Cambia Health Solutions’ Best Health/Healthcare Idea. New this year are the Big Picture Prizes, including UIEvolution’s $5,000 Internet of Things (IoT) prize and AARP’s Aging in Place prize.
Learn about the 36 teams below and read more about the BPC 2016 sponsors and prizes here.
AAArdwolf Technologies
Robert Masse, UW Materials Science
AAArdwolf Technology is deploying a next-generation battery testing platform composed of low-cost hardware and cloud-connected software. This market will allow us to perfect our technology before pursuing larger markets for IoT science instruments.
ACRELO
Jack Parker, Spencer Seim, Ryan Kadletz; Pinchot University MBA
Acrelo is a SaaS-based commercial real estate application that streamlines the marketing process for brokers, allowing them more time to focus on closing transactions.
Aquapel
Di Sun, Mariko Howard, Adam Zhu, Jenny Wang, Bruno Out, David Zerby; UW Electrical Engineering, UW Bothell Electrical Engineering, UW Bothell Mechanical Engineering, UW Japanese, UW Political Science, UW Foster School of Business
Aquapel patented technologies create a self-cleaning system for solar panels by creatively manipulating water droplets movement on the panel’s surface. By doing this, we eliminate labor cost, minimize water usage, and cut back the payback time by 25 percent.
Bathing Beauteas
Joyce Tang, Emily Smith, Sara Almughairy, Stephanie Mai; UW Foster School of Business, UW Human-Centered Design and Engineering, UW Communications
Bathing Beauteas is a reinvented tea bath experience that combines historical bathing traditions and today’s natural ingredients to empower the modern woman. We aim to provide a healthy in-home spa experience to help high-energy, high-impact women.
Bellhapp
Rishabh Jain, Corey Cole, Rion Ramirez; UW Foster School of Business, UW Informatics
Bellhapp is a technology startup dedicated to revolutionizing the way restaurants do business.
BridgeCare Finance
Christina Chase, Jamee Herbert, Mike Chiles, Audra Jung; Pinchot University MBA
BridgeCare Finance offers bridge financing to break down the cost barriers of childcare for working families. We create greater choice, higher quality care options and the ability to maintain continuous career paths.
Capture
Kyle Huber, Vijay Kumar, Sara Al Mughairy, Matt Robinson, Annie Pyle, Alex Polozov, Paula Kosasih; UW Foster School of Business, UW School of Law, UW Human-Computer Interaction and Design, UW Computer Science, UW Interaction Design
Capture disrupts the traditional photography industry, helping great photography make sense for all great moments. Capture is an online platform that connects customers with qualified, local freelance photographers in a simple, cost-effective manner.
Club Genie
Matthew Davis, Mark Lloyd, Cara Morgenstern; UW Foster School of Business
Club Genie will be the first company to successfully offer a wide range of golf clubs to consumers via web-based subscription model. A Club Genie subscription will provide a risk-free way to get name brand golf clubs at an affordable monthly rate.
Decaf Style
Chun-Chia Kao, Archana Narayan, Yu-Liang Liu, Muhamad Said, Matthew Willett; UW Chemical Engineering, UW Foster School of Business
Decaf Style: Decaf On The Way to Go is currently developing new natural and cost-effective materials that provide instant beverage decaffeination without use of chemicals or affecting the taste.
DTS Aerospace
Sarah Robbins, Drake Perez, Taylor Prince; Washington State University Civil Engineering, WSU Mechanical Engineering
DTS Aerospace provides flammability testing services to aerospace manufacturers. Our automated testing design provides customers with more reliable and accurate data on tested airplane interior materials.
Emobie Labs
Lindsey Arnold, Ryan Porter, Gabe Feeley; UW Human-Centered Design and Engineering, UW Chemistry, Stanford University Computer Science
Emobie Labs is creating affordable social robots for children for the purposes of therapy, tutoring, and play.
Engage
Emily Willard, Katherine Brandenstein; WSU Bioengineering
Engage develops medical technology for developing countries with a shortage of resources, initially through the product SafeShot to reduce the spread of bloodborne diseases.
FitTraction
Justin Lee, Christian Taylor, Ian Turner; UW Computer Science, UW Foster School of Business
FitTraction is a workout tracking app that is driven by its ability to build and provide human relationships that foster accountability. It will benefit health clubs and personal trainers by improving retention and increasing training revenue.
Goodi
Tianyi Chen, Max Lo, Yingkai Wang, Zehao Sun, Priyanka Balasubramanian, Yuwei Ding, Yuan Zhuang; UW Economics, UW Computer Science, UW Electrical Engineering, UW Human-Centered Design and Engineering
Goodi is the one-stop solution to all academic problems. It speeds up the process of academic problem solving because it allows users to bid for their question and to earn money by answering questions of others.
Hair Vision
Ali Ziadloo, Erik Logan, Shubha Mandyam Pratiwadibhayankar, Donald Brockett; UW Foster School of Business
To men who are concerned about hair loss, Hair Vision provides a fast, accurate, and convenient way to monitor their hair loss, giving them confidence in their hair.
Hitch’d
Daniel Behrman, Ryan Gerber, Ken Horenstein; UW Foster School of Business, UW Human-Computer Interaction and Design
Hitch’d is the world’s first mobile-forward, data-driven booking solution for couples looking to plan their dream wedding. Our goal is to create a streamlined service that simplifies and accelerates the wedding planning and vendor booking process.
Ionic Windows
Anthony Moretti, Ian Hochstein; UW Chemical Engineering, UW Foster School of Business
Ionic Windows provides membranes to flow battery manufacturers that enable a 25 percent capital cost reduction, making grid-scale renewable energy economically viable.
JikoPower
Michael Jooste, Marene Wiley; UW Foster School of Business, UW Political Economy
At JikoPower, thermoelectric generators harness wasted energy and convert it into electricity to charge cell phones, LED lights, and other small devices. By doing this, JikoPower is able to provide safe, sustainable energy to people around the world.
Joe Chocolates
Renee Chang, Sam Tanner, Grace Bentson; UW Visual Communication Design, UW Foster School of Business
At Joe Chocolates, the mission is to make the best chocolate-covered espresso beans, allowing people to take their favorite Seattle coffees with them around the city and around the world.
Kazoo
Kamal Manchanda, Vinish Benny, Diwaker Gunturi, Shaun Lewis; UW Foster School of Business
Kazoo streamlines the kid’s birthday party planning process by providing a one-stop shop for parents to select a venue, book catering, hire entertainers, choose party supplies and send invitations using real-time integration with suppliers.
MetRS
Christopher Joyce, Ryan Delacruz, Colin Johnston, Omeed Faghih; UW Biochemistry, UW Foster School of Business, UW Pharmacy
MetRS has discovered new antibiotics that have great oral bioavailability and potency against drug-resistant bacteria like MRSA and Staph and can be administered via IV or oral pill thus saving potentially billions of dollars in healthcare costs.
miPS Labs
Alex Jiao, Jenna Strully, Ned Whalen, Rob Thomas, Aakash Sur, Winnie Leung; UW Bioengineering, UW Foster School of Business, UW Biomedical and Health Informatics
Preserve your cells today. Regenerate your body tomorrow. miPS Labs offers consumers cell preservation and personalized stem cell generation for stem cell therapies and diagnostics.
MultiModal Health
Brian Mogen, Lars Crawford, Tyler Libey, Dimitrios Gklezakos; UW Bioengineering, UW Neurobiology, UW Computer Science & Engineering
MultiModal Health develops connected platforms using affordable sensing and analytic technology to understand and improve health for everyone.
Night Light
James Rothenberger, Adam Riddle, Tristan Lee; UW Foster School of Business, UW Human-Computer Interaction & Design
Night Light is a traffic signal company that utilizes laser and LED technology to provide municipalities, states, and corporate partners illuminated signals that improve pedestrian safety.
nomAD Technologies
Jonah Friedl, Conner Brennick, Tanner Strobel; Washington State University Carson College of Business, Entrepreneurship , WSU Computer Science
nomAD Technologies puts brands at the heart of the consumer environment with captivating advertising displays and supportive software.
PHSH
Nicole Chin, Elizabeth Halsne, Kasey Acob, Wasinee Opal Sriapha, Venus Chan; UW Materials Science & Engineering, UW Rehabilitation Science, UW Mechanical Engineering, UW Foster School of Business
The PHSH is a non-elastic support belt that provides safe, effective, non-invasive, and comfortable stoma protection and hernia prevention, restoring quality of life and reducing the health care costs to 1.2 million American ostomy patients.
Revwoo
Rafael Wong, Liz Koser, Jedidiah Crews; UW Foster School of Business
RevWoo.com is a B2B online accounting services marketplace matching entrepreneurs with vetted accountants for on-demand advice and projects.
Rite-Rain
Weston Dotson, Jeremy Gratz, Katelyn Stround, Paul Reiner; Eastern Washington University Mechanical Engineering, EWU General Management
Rite-Rain attaches ground moisture sensor technology to a homeowner’s garden hose sprinkler to automatically turn off the sprinkler and eliminate over-watering.
SafeFlame
Kevin Cussen, Sam Wright, Stacy Hanks, Luiza Pompeo; UW Foster School of Business, UW Political Economics
A service-based approach to bringing a healthy, renewable, and competitively priced fuel source to energy-insecure constituents in the developing world.
Safe-Fur
Ipolitas Dunaravich, Ashley Smith; UW Foster School of Business
Implantable GPS for pets. Piezo-electric energy harvesting.
Scholarship Junkies
David Coven, Emily Majors, Mikael Hernandez; UW Mechanical Engineering, UW Chinese Language and Literature, UW Communications, UW Applied Physics
Students helping provide free, top quality support for anyone striving to fund their college success.
Smart Charger Pro
Yanbo Qi, Yutian Qian, Samson Smith, Niccolo Fortes, Nannan Jiang; UW Chemical Engineering
The Smart Charger Pro offers customers a smarter and customizable way to charge their electronic devices; utilizing flexible rates, a quicker charge or a longer life per charge and improved battery health can be achieved while reducing battery waste.
Tack
Kevin Ye, Nick Mao, Keegan Farley; UW Psychology, UW Foster School of Business, UW Informatics
Teams are currently juggling three different tools just to talk internally, and the worst part is none of the tools talk to each other. Tack provides a mobile platform that helps non-technical teams collaborate by combining communication and task management
VESPAR
Larry Chang, Mae Oreiro, Mark Dela Rosa, Brian Som, Rachel Renolds, Dane Jessen, Katie Kenny; UW Tacoma Information Technology, UW Tacoma Business Administration
VESPAR, LLC is a software company specializing in point of sales systems for drive-thru ordering. Our vision is to revolutionize the way drive-thru ordering is conducted.
VIGILUMI
Shane Colburn, Nerea Alayo, Alan Zhan, Snigdha Singh, Lionel Wang; UW Electrical Engineering, UW Physics
Vigilumi offers a sensor for mobile, instant monitoring of eye pressure to assist in glaucoma management. The sensor will be implanted through a well-known sutureless surgery procedure, which is critical for the acceptance of the sensor.
Z-ion+ Technologies
Marvin Mecwan, Ruying Chen, Sabrina Kamran, Marleny Santos; UW Bioengineering, UW Pharmacology, UW Foster School of Business
Z-ion+ technologies utilizes patent-pending technology to make non-stick, long-lasting, durable coatings that can be applied to any vascular medical device to prevent complications due to blood clots.
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