Round 2

2013-2014‎ > ‎

After starting with over 100 teams, our pool of 500 judges have selected the top teams in each track.
In Round 2, we have advanced top 30 student teams, the top 30 non-student teams. In addition, 30 honorable mention teams can participate in Round 2 as well.

Thanks to our many competitors and judges for participating in Round 1!
For Round 2, the teams are creating Indiegogo campaign videos (which will be linked to from this page), a plan or pitch deck, and will be judged by the judging pool again.

Come back on January 8th, to see all of the videos and Indiegogo campaigns!

Student Competition: Top 30 Teams from Round 1

Pending eligibility verification, these teams are all eligible to create Indiegogo campaigns. These teams are all eligible to participate to Demo Day, conditional on their deliverables being completed to a satisfactory level.

501 Carbon - 501 Carbon is a non-profit organization dedicated to addressing climate change, and ultimately greenhouse gas emissions, in a manner that provides benefits and incentives for all participants; whether they are businesses, consumers, or developers.

Team: Andrew Scott Joiner, Nicholas School of the Environment, 2014, jsa18@duke.edu
Adrien Comte, Nicholas School of the Environment, 2014, adrien.comte@duke.edu
Hasan Anwer, Sanford School of Public Policy, 2014, hasan.anwer@duke.edu
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Social Enterprises

Breethe - Breethe provides a comprehensive and cost-effective approach to asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and fitness management through the combination of a low-cost spirometer device, and mobile application.

Team: Meng Heng Touch, Medical Physics, 2018, mengheng.touch@duke.edu
Anthony Au, Pratt School of Engineering, 2014, anthony.au@duke.edu
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Healthcare & Life Sciences

Broota - Broota (http://broota.com) is an online marketplace that supports direct equity investments from individual investors to small companies in Brazil. At Broota, investors find free access to select private investments, easy tools to identify and diligence companies, and online transaction capability to make investments.

Team: Pablo Ramos, Fuqua 2015
Frederico Rizzo, Fuqua 2014, frederico.rizzo@fuqua.duke.edu
Zhan Khan, Fuqua 2014
Naren Singh, Fuqua 2014
Juan Andion, Fuqua 2015
Nabin Khanal, Fuqua 2014
Jessica Zhang, Undergrad 2017
Yizhou Jiang, Undergrad 2017
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Other Products & Services

Campus Companion - Campus Companion is a revolutionary new emergency management system for universities, hospitals, municipalities, and other institutions. Campus Companion is primarily a smart phone app that allows users to discreetly call for help in the event of an emergency with just a single cell button press. The phone transmits user information and real-time GPS to security administrators so they can make the smartest and fastest response.

Team: Jordan Malof, Pratt Graduate School, 2015, jmmalo03@gmail.com
Nicholas Czarnek, Pratt Graduate School, 2017
Kedar Prabhudesai, Pratt Graduate School, 2017
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Internet, IT & Media

CranioVation - CranioVation is committed to the development of novel treatments for difficult neurological diseases. Most recently we have developed an innovative device for the treatment of malignant brain tumors. This device which allows for the selective killing of tumor tissue using a minimally-invasive approach has the potential to revolutionize the way we treat brain tumors. The CranioVation team consists of medical professionals including neurosurgeons, engineers, and lawyers, ensuring its success in tackling difficult neurological conditions.

Team: Ranjith Babu - School of Medicine, May 2014, rb153@duke.edu
Vijay Agarwal - School of Medicine, July 2016, vjagarwal@gmail.com
Craig Litherland, University of New Ham shire School of Law, 2014, craigmlitherland@gmail.com
Robert Isaacs - Department of Surgery, Division of Neurosurgery, robert.isaacs.@duke.edu
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Healthcare & Life Sciences

CrowD - In today's high tech and fast paced society, communal interaction has become a problem due to the narrowing of people's perspectives. Many of the tools available for public interaction (Google+, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) make personal preference a fundamental priority. The more people rely on such tools, the more he or she becomes entrenched in his or her own set of interests. It then becomes clear that finding new areas of personal preferences may become an obstacle. Many fun and important social events become lost simply due to being unseen and unknown. CrowD aims to provide people with a location and time based layout of local events and activities. Having such a program on mobile device or the computer makes the virtual community an asset to the local community. It would truly solve problem of ""what is there to do?"".

This application’s initial target is a student community which assembles a mini city. Users can host private or public social gatherings. Clubs or special interest groups can show meeting dates, or public events. As CrowD becomes a more universal tool, events which are more difficult to find out about, such as horse back riding weekends, Krav Maga classes, or even pottery making sessions would be universally available for everyone. Local officials can even post dates for public forums to increase the effectiveness of our democracy.

CrowD aims to provide people with a simple, navigable layout of all the social activities within an area. We propose a user friendly application intent on bringing the virtual community to meet the physical community-a centralized platform that could potentially capture all of a city's activities in one place. Individuals would be able to browse, plan, advertise, and promote events. Furthermore, along with each event, users would be able to view the distance between the event location and their time and location current location, user rating, and participation level.

More importantly, CrowD has the potential to eliminate stagnant time by showing what an area has to offer with just one click away. This program has the opportunity to inspire heat of the moment adventures, and allow local avenues to gain a larger impact on their surroundings. More importantly CrowD can solve the age old problem of “why is there nothing to do”.

Team: Kawa Cheong, The Fuqua School of Business at Duke, May 2014, Kawa.Cheong@duke.edu
Yang Jiang, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, May 2008, Yang0jiang@gmail.com
Aradhna Madireddi, Pratt School of Engineering at Duke, May 2017, aradhna.madireddi@duke.edu
Catherine Barzler, Duke's Asia/Pacific Studies Institute, May 2015, Catherine.Barzler@duke.edu
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Social Enterprises

CrowdTunes - For the venue owner seeking a cost effective way to deliver the right music to the right audience at the right time, CrowdTunes is a cloud based music management service and mobile bidding platform that empowers patrons to bid on the music they want to hear in a virtual marketplace. Unlike traditional music management options that require a capital investment and ongoing maintenance while offering the patron nothing more than a static playlist, CrowdTunes engages the patrons in a dynamic environment that is suited specifically to their taste -- while providing a cost-effective and low-maintenance solution to the venue.

More simply put, jukeboxes have been around since the early 1900’s and haven’t evolved over that time. We are still feeding dollars into clumsy machines that offer no personalization and limited interaction. The time has come for CrowdTunes to bring the jukebox into the 21st century and revolutionize the bar experience.

Team: Brandon Magsamen - Fuqua - 2014 - Brandon.Magsamen@duke.edu
Lee Kornfeld - Fuqua - 2014 - Lee.Kornfeld@duke.edu
Joe Bartell - Fuqua 2014 - Joe.bartell@duke.edu
Jay Needham - Duke Law - 2014 - Jayesh.Needham@duke.edu
Davis Gossage - Pratt - 2016 - dcg13@duke.edu
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Internet, IT & Media

Diabetes Doc - Diabetes Doc is a mobile application that assists doctors in effectively managing care of their patients who have diabetes.

Team: Tri Le, Duke University School of Medicine, 2014, tri.le@duke.edu
Emily Garber, RD, CDE, LDN, Dietitian at Duke Hospital, emily.garber@duke.edu
Rebecca Kullman, Fuqua School of Business, 2015, rebecca.kullman@fuqua.duke.edu
Theo Ahadome, Fuqua School of Business, 2015, theo.ahadome@fuqua.duke.edu
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Healthcare & Life Sciences

Duke/Durham Saves - In 2009, 22.7% of Durham County residents had income below the poverty line. A third of these residents had income that was below half the poverty line. Poverty and unemployment are massive problems that fundamentally alter the community. However, gaining employment is not enough to bring a family out of poverty. Without proper financial skills and access to a financial institution, many people are reduced back to poverty due to measures beyond their control. Even in an institution as prestigious as Duke University, only one student in our house course class of 15 had ever created a budget. To us, personal finance extends far beyond building wealth and gaining access to financial institutions. Personal finance includes being economically empowered, couponing, budgeting, using mobile applications to find discounts and apartments, and so much more.

Duke/Durham Saves builds upon current research in Behavioral Economics and financial literacy to materially impact the Duke and Durham communities. We partner with local credit unions to aid community members in opening savings accounts and with faith institutions to build financial literacy and resilience. We additionally partner with Duke to provide the same services to our cohort, and we are developing courseware and gaming strategies that will change the way people broach this topic.

Duke/Durham Saves hopes to eventually serve as a “quarterback” for wealth building in the community. By utilizing the latest research in Behavioral Economics combined with teaching through games, Duke/Durham Saves believes we will reach our constituent populations in the most effective way to affect savings and financial security. We also are working to develop a program where we can provide matching grants and micro-financing to younger community members to make financial literacy interesting and productive.

Team: Jennifer Garand, Trinity, 2016, jennifer.garand@duke.edu
Steven Blaser, Trinity, 2014, steven.blaser@duke.edu
Emilie Melvin, Trinity, 2014, emilie.melvin@duke.edu
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Social Enterprises

Fingo - Fingo is a 3D/2D gesture recognition device.

It traces hand and 10 fingers' movements.

Very high precision (0.1mm)

Very small latency and pretty low price

My team holds 5 patents for Fingo's hardware, software, algorithm and applications.

Team Leader: Anli He, anli.he@fuqua.duke.edu, Fuqua - EMBA (CC, GEMBA, WEMBA) 2014
Location: San Jose, CA
Track: Internet, IT & Media

FishCycle - Recycling fish byproduct and redistributing to places in need.

Team: Albert Hu, Pratt Undergraduate, 2014, albert.hu@duke.edu
Mike Yuefeng Du, Pratt Undergraduate, 2014, yd27@duke.edu
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Other Products & Services

Health-E - If you are what you eat, as the saying goes, reading the ingredients list on packaged foods can make you think twice. The food industry is filled with chemicals like preservatives and pesticides that are not entirely regulated by the FDA or U.S. Department of Agriculture. There needs to be some way that consumers can be sure that what they are eating is safe and healthy.

Our product, Health-E, will translate these chemical names into layman terms and gauge how harmful each of these chemicals can be. If a consumer wanted to know what chemicals such as preservatives and food additives are in certain food products, they could simply use Health-E. By simply scanning a product's barcode, the consumer will be presented with information on the chemicals in the product and learn more about the health effects of the chemicals. Health-E will provide healthier alternatives to food products the consumers search. In addition, companies that pass our rigorous requirements to provide healthier substitutes can pay to be sponsored by Health-E .

The end goal of the project is to bridge both nutrition and health to social sciences. We want to go past what media informs consumer of what is healthy or not and let the consumers educate themselves. Health-E will empower consumers to have more control over what they are putting into their bodies and become a stepping stone in the path of creating a healthier society.

Team: Alex Dao, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences, 2017, azd2@duke.edu
Emily Tan, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences, 2017, et76@duke.edu
Revanth Manchenella, Pratt School of Engineering, 2017, rm232@duke.edu
Jonathan Tseng, Pratt School of Engineering, 2017, jtt24@duke.edu
Prathibha Juturu, Pratt School of Engineering, 2017, pj46@duke.edu
Location: Plano, TX
Track: Other Products & Services

IrisPGx - More than 75% of the American population has genetic-based variations in drug metabolism pathways that can increase risk of an adverse drug reaction (ADR), a harm associated with the use of prescribed medications at a normal dosage during normal use. Without knowing in advance how patients might genetically respond to prescribed medications, healthcare providers inadvertently put patients at greater risk of an ADR.

More than 100,000 people die from ADRs each year, and 2.2 million serious ADR incidents occur per year, making ADRs one of the leading causes of death in the US. In addition, ADRs place an unnecessary financial toll on the nation’s healthcare system. The New England Health Institute estimates that nonadherence, along with suboptimal prescribing, drug administration, and diagnosis, results in as much as $290 billion per year in potentially avoidable medical spending.

Our solution is IrisPGx, a pharmacogenetic-based software-as-a-service platform, provides medical professionals with clinical decision support to put personalized medicine into practice. IrisPGx gathers scientific data on drug-drug and drug-gene interactions, as well as a patient’s medical history and genetic information, to help physicians predict a patient’s potential risk for drug toxicity, thereby reducing the likelihood of a patient’s exposure to an adverse drug event.

Team: Nicole Leung, Trinity College of Arts and Sciences, 2014, nleung10@gmail.com
Yanjun (Anna) Liu, Trinity College of Arts and Sciences, 2014, yanjun.liu@duke.edu
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Internet, IT & Media

ITNR, LLC - ITNR is an online application that automates weekend and vacation planning, allowing busy young professionals to plan out exciting weekends and vacations without investing much, if any, time scouring the internet and charting out a route. By aggregating content from various sites, considering your personal preferences and the ratings of those around you, ITNR can automatically route out a single or multiple day trip, consisting of events, activities and restaurants that you're most likely to enjoy. At the same time, ITNR considers the point to point distance between locations to arrange the itinerary in the most efficient, logical travel route possible.

Let ITNR automatically plan your weekend, customize it as you see fit, and enjoy all the things you'd otherwise miss, without investing a ton of time planning.

Team: Roman Wilson, Fuqua School of Business, 2015, Roman.Wilson@fuqua.duke.edu
Maria Krasnova, Fuqua School of Business, 2015, Maria.Krasnov@fuqua.duke.edu
Alexei Robsky, Fuqua School of Business, 2015, Alexei.Robsky@fuqua.duke.edu
Shannon Gorman, Fuqua School of Business, 2015, Shannon.Gorman@fuqua.duke.edu
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Internet, IT & Media

JoKno - Each year millions of students graduate from universities across the globe. But even with a new degree in hand and entire futures ahead of them, many students are concerned about life post-graduation. The majority still has no clear career choice in mind. And in most cases, students in this position have done their research: they’ve visited the career center, they’ve worked available job search engines (e.g., Indeed and Monster), and they’ve reached out to their network to try and figure out the right career choice. Yet, despite their efforts, their career choice still remains a mystery.

However, we believe that JoKno can significantly improve the career search for students by finding a career that they’ll enjoy. We plan to do this by using survey techniques to gather the collective experience of alumni, because the best quality of information on jobs come from those who’ve had them. As individuals, we can’t network our way to enough conversations with job holders to fully address our career information needs—but JoKno can.

Once we collect alumni survey responses, we will be able to clean the data so that it can be easily interpreted by users. Furthermore, JoKno’s interface will provide a personalized, intuitive and adaptive search experience for students looking for careers based on the needs and interests that they believe are central to their career considerations.

Team: Josh Cutler, Duke University Graduate School, josh.cutler@gmail.com
Meka Este-McDonald, Stanford University ’12, meka012@alumni.stanford.edu
Jesse Hu, Duke University Pratt School of Engineering, jrh52@duke.edu
Andrew Makori, Houghton University Business School, andrew.makori14@houghton.edu
Scott de Marchi, Duke University Professor Political Science, scott.demarchi@gmail.com
Brennan Robinson, Duke University Graduate School, brobinson837@gmail.com
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Other Products & Services

Lacewing Labs - Lacewing Labs provides cost efficient unmanned aerial vehicles for the agricultural industry.

Team: Josh Miller, Pratt School of Engineering, 2016, joshua.m.miller@duke.edu
Will Ranish, Fuqua School of Business, 2015, william.ranish@fuqua.duke.edu
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Other Products & Services

Let's be Well RED (LBWR) - Iron-deficieny anemia is a big public health problem in India-- 80% of Indians are anemic and this accounts for 60-65% of the maternal and fetal deaths in the country. Let's be Well RED (LBWR) was launched in Mumbai (India) in 2011. Through the anemia testing and treating camps we conducted in the urban slums of Mumbai, we realized that apart from spreading awareness, what anemic patients in India needed was a simple solution to their problem--they needed a single iron-rich food supplement that contained enough iron to suffice their daily iron requirement.

Hence LBWR became a socially responsible company that started manufacturing iron-rich nutritional bars called GudNeSs that contain the WHO recommended daily iron requirement. LBWR follows a two pronged approach to combat anemia in India: 1) We spread awareness through our Health Scouts Program where we train High School students in India to spread awareness about anemia in their neighborhoods. This program currently runs in three different states in India-- we currently have 200 Health Scouts in Mumbai (Maharashtra), 50 Health Scouts in Surat (Gujarat) and have recently launched our program in Chennai (Tamil Nadu). Additionally, we conduct anemia testing and treating camps in the slums and rural areas by collaborating with different NGOs.

2) Next, we provide an easy nutritional solution to anemic individuals by making our iron-rich GudNeSs bars available to them. LBWR has sold over 90,000 GudNeSs bars through schools, NGOs, retail and individual orders. We are currently working with the Government to enable a state wide roll out of these bars--if this deal goes through, we will be supplying 1 million bars/week to the government alone! We are also working on expanding our product line, improving supply and distribution, and are in the process of recruiting more staff in India to aid LBWR's rapid and accelerated growth.

Team Leader: Rajvi Mehta, rm236@dm.duke.edu, School of Medicine
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Social Enterprises

Mantis Lightsystems - We are a company dedicated to developing and selling a single product - the Mantis Headturner. This is a portable, 4-moving head DJ lightsystem that is fully controllable by smartphone, and offers local DJs, bands, and venues a light with unmatched focus and control at an affordable price - it's the first concert lightsystem designed exclusively for small events.

Team: Kasper Kubica, Trinity, 2017, kasperkubica@gmail.com
William Floyd-Jones, Pratt, 2017, william.floyd.jones@duke.edu
Sanford Morton, Pratt, 2017, sanford.morton@duke.edu
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Other Products & Services

Mantra Financial - Marine boat builders utilize a lot of resources designing the perfect boat, options, dealer network and marketing strategies but fall short in one area of the retail environment; subsidized finance options available for the consumer at the point of purchase. The point of purchase is disjointed currently and has a large opportunity to improve. Currently, dealers are left to seek out financing options in to refer its customers to that are unable to pay cash. These dealers often complain that once the customer leaves the retail store to search for financing options, the dealer rarely hears from the customer again. The customer may decide that the purchase wasn’t what he wanted or that he wanted to shop around for some different options. Dealers have long complained to their Original Equipment Manufacturers that if a retail financing option was made available, dealers could retail many more units and improve on the current buyer experience. Often times Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) wish to own and operate a captive retail finance company where it could assist the retail purchase environment by providing subsidized financing options to consumers however, OEMs in these particular industries are extremely risk averse and recognize they do not have the expertise needed, the IT system required, and the capital allocation necessary to embark on this endeavor. Current OEMs look for retail finance partners and have come up empty as there are no options in the market today.

The Mantra Financial solution is to provide a national retail financing platform where Boat OEMs can participate in the promotion and rate discounting through its dealers ultimately to end consumers. These OEMs will promote Mantra Financial’s services to each of its dealers by contracting with Mantra to offer specific promotions. For example, a typical boat loan would have a minimum requirement of at least a $25,000 loan amount with rates in the 8-10% range. A particular OEM could buy the rate down through Mantra Financial via an up-front discount (percent of the amount financed) and offer a sub-market rate of 0-7%. This type of promotion would allow the OEM to promote and advertise affordability of ownership through a monthly debt obligation focus which does not erode the value of the product like flat cash rebates. This would also afford a competitive advantage over the OEM’s competition that does not participate in retail financing promotions.

Mantra Financial can solve the needs of over 100 boat manufacturers with each having its own dealer base

Team: Matt Lekawa, Fuqua School of Business, 2014, matt.lekawa@duke.edu
Ryan Graven, Fuqua School of Business, 2014, Ryan.Graven@duke.edu
Nilesh Chordiya, Fuqua School of Business, 2014, Nilesh.Chordiya@duke.edu
Ankur Sanghi, Fuqua School of Business, 2014, Ankur.Sanghi@duke.edu
Toye Osunbunmi, Fuqua School of Business, 2014, Toye.Osunbunmi@duke.edu
Location: Morrisville, NC
Track: Other Products & Services

Med3D - The American Cancer Society recommends annual mammograms for women starting at the age of 40. To ensure that all women have access to quality mammography for the detection of breast cancer in its earliest, most treatable stages the mammography quality standards act (MQSA) became law in 1992 and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) enforces its accreditation and certification.

Acceptance testing of mammography systems is currently performed using uniform slabs of tissue-equivalent plastics with necessary test structures embedded in them. These phantoms are far from representing a realistic breast background, hence significantly underestimating the sophistication of actual detection tasks. Currently, there is no anthropomorphic 3D physical breast phantom available commercially.

In addition to regular quality assurance testing, physical breast phantoms are essential for the development, optimization, and clinical evaluation of new and emerging patient-specific 3D x-ray breast imaging systems such as digital breast tomosynthesis and breast computed tomography. These phantoms are used for various tests such as system characterization, reconstruction evaluation, cross-platform comparisons, and dosimetry to name a few. They should ideally be capable of serving as the ground truth for purposes such as virtual clinical trials, which are less costly and time consuming than clinical trials and eliminate the irradiation of the population.

Virtual or computerized breast phantoms with sophisticated modeling of the breast anatomy have been developed previously. However, there has been limited success to extend these to physical phantoms. Here we present our methodology and initial results of development of physical breast phantoms with matching virtual phantoms based on human subject data. We elaborate on how we aim to pursue this development into an expanded family of virtual and physical phantoms with corresponding anatomy to serve both as quality assurance testing phantoms and research phantoms for devising and evaluating new imaging systems and techniques.

Our physical breast phantoms are generated from the extended cardiac-torso (XCAT) virtual breast phantoms, which were segmented from human subject dedicated breast computed tomography data. High-resolution multi-material 3D printing technology is used to fabricate the physical breast phantoms. Multiple prototype variations are fabricated and tested. The mammographic projections and tomosynthesis reconstructed images of the fabricated phantoms show great improvement over available phantoms, presenting a more realistic breast background.

Our prototype physical breast phantoms have raised a huge interest in the community. They have been introduced at several international technical conferences and are constantly being examined by regulatory organizations such as American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) task groups, the FDA, and the European Reference Organization for Quality Assured Breast Screening and Diagnostic Services (EUREF).

Team: Nooshin Kiarashi, nooshin.kiarashi@duke.edu, PhD candidate in electrical and computer engineering at Pratt school of engineering, Duke University, and research assistant at Carl E. Ravin Advanced Imaging Laboratories, department of Radiology, Duke University Medical Center
Greg Sturgeon, greg.sturgeon@duke.edu, PhD student in biomedical engineering at UNC Chapel Hill, and research analyst at Carl E. Ravin Advanced Imaging Laboratories, department of Radiology, Duke University Medical Center
Adam Nolte, adam.nolte@duke.edu, Senior and Pratt fellow at Pratt school of engineering, Duke University, majoring in biomedical engineering and minoring in chemistry
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Healthcare & Life Sciences

POWERTRENZ - The world needs clean energy, the market for renewable energy is growing and we intend to become a leading provider of energy by placing solar electric generation on every house in America. By combining new undiscovered types of solar technologies with a revolutionary roofing application, we can provide supplemental electrical solar power energy at competitive costs. By solving the the major problems with Solar through a holistic approach, serving the customer, and providing top line solutions and technology, we can provide solar roofing systems that will supplement electrical energy from traditional sources and become the household supplier of electricity.

Team: Peter Crayton, Fuqua School of Business, 2013, peter.crayton@fuqua.duke.edu
Charles Wright, Fuqua School of Business, 2013, charles.wright@fuqua.duke.edu
Ryan Smith, Fuqua School of Business, 2013, ryan.smith@fuqua.duke.edu
Anup Shah, Fuqua School of Business, 2013, anup.shah@fuqua.duke.edu
Location: Matthews, NC
Track: Clean Energy

Rangeland Solutions - Rangeland Solutions is an innovative social business with the mission to provide sustainable income-generating opportunities to pastoralists, by restoring the local ecosystem and utilizing better rangeland and livestock management techniques to increase the productivity of the land and livestock.

Working through community-based field staff, Rangeland Solutions partners with pastoralist groups to provide them the resources, training and support they need to implement Holistic Management, a ranch planning system. This unique approach to rangeland management has been shown to rehabilitate habitats by reducing overgrazing and erosion and enhancing natural processes, thereby increasing land productivity and generating significantly higher rates of beef production.

Overall, this approach has the potential to significantly improve the livelihoods of pastoralists, who are often some of the poorest and most marginalized members of society, while reversing the processes of desertification and climate change, which threaten our planet.

Team: Taylor Tully, Nicholas School of the Environment, 2014, tgt2@duke.edu
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Social Enterprises

SaleSource - Sending US workers abroad to save companies money and maintain the high standards of customer service and sales that they have in the US.

Team: Tito Bohrt, Trinity, Dec 2013, hjb5@duke.edu
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Other Products & Services

Stuffboard - Stuffboard is a fun, trusted social network for people to buy, sell and trade their stuff. An online and mobile platform, Stuffboard will be a new entry in the online classified advertising industry, a business category projected to generate $2.7B in revenue in 2013.

The company is conducting final market research to hone a strategy for entry in early 2014. In parallel, a small group of equity stakeholders is building a minimum viable product consisting of an adaptive website, a focused mobile app for sellers, and a grass-roots marketing campaign to identify and engage power users to evangelize and use the product.

Team: Charles Machalicky, Fuqua School of Business, Weekend Executive MBA program, 2014, Charles.machalicky@fuqua.duke.edu
Sean Saunders, Fuqua School of Business, Weekend Executive MBA program, 2014
Sean.saunders@fuqua.duke.edu
Biren Agrawal, Fuqua School of Business, Weekend Executive MBA program, 2014, Biren.agrawal@fuqua.duke.edu
Location: Raleigh, NC
Track: Internet, IT & Media

The Baker Box - The Baker Box helps to eliminate the planning, minimize the preparation, and optimize the experience of baking for busy people who love eating delicious, homemade baked goods. Each month, a box arrives in the mail with directions and dry ingredients for two delicious baked goods recipes. Whether they subscribe to the chocolate box, the kids’ box, or the original (variety) box, we send only the best recipes and ingredients, all tested and approved in our own kitchen.

The original box explores a variety of baked goods, from coconut scones to cinnamon cake. The chocolate box never fails to fulfill the cravings of chocolate lovers across the country, and the kids’ box makes it easy for busy parents, uncles, aunts, grandparents, or babysitters to spend quality time with kids, with directions and tips on how to get kids involved.

Team: Bart Bradshaw, Fuqua, 2015, bart.bradshaw@fuqua.duke.edu
Janssen Bradshaw, janssenbradshaw@gmail.com
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Other Products & Services

Towel Burner - Gyms typically provide towels to members for use during their workouts. Our team has discovered that this service is very expensive for gyms to uphold. After speaking with managers from several fitness clubs, our team assesses that this service costs a gym anywhere from $3K to $5K a year. Considering that there are over 53,000 registered gyms in the US and assuming that half of them offer a towel service, we can conservatively estimate that over $75M is being spent on towel services each year. Towel Burner clears the towel expense off of a gym’s books by providing them with free towels. Towel Burner creates revenue by providing a solution to a different customer, any business seeking an advertising solution.

Total advertisement spending during the first six months of 2013 was $68.9B. With so much noise, regardless of the size of a firm, it is an extreme challenge to effectively advertise and reach your target audience. Towel Burner helps business owners solve this problem by advertising on our gym towels.

Team: Jeff Iannaccone, Fuqua 2013, jeff.iannaccone@fuqua.duke.edu
Jake Anderson, applying for UNC MBA 2015, spike@towelburner.com
Sri Krishnan, applying for Fuqua WEMBA 2015, fuse@towelburner.com
Melissa Kilfoy, University of Iowa MBA 2011, melissakilfoy@gmail.com
Andrew Sisler, Florida Tech MBA 2012, andrewatvt@yahoo.com
Location: Goldsboro, NC
Track: Other Products & Services

TruFish - Despite considerable efforts by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), several state health agencies, and the largest U.S.-based seafood trade association, public reports of widespread seafood mislabeling persist. This is evidenced by recent studies published by non-profit organizations and publicized by the media. These reports, whether they reflect a national or regional problem, reveal the significant economic, health and resource implications not only for the seafood industry but the U.S. food distribution network as well. We intend to offer a service that provides the seafood industry with an assurance that the seafood products they buy and sell are verified as their labeled species.

Our solution to this problem is a service-based company, TruFish. This company will provide seafood purveyors, distributors, retailers, and end consumers greater peace of mind that the seafood products they purchase are genuine and meet the proper labeling requirements of the U.S. FDA. The service applies FDA approved DNA barcoding technology to verify the authenticity of seafood products. It will operate as a subscription-based business that reduces costs for DNA testing to its subscribers through a distributed-cost model. The subscription offers regular random testing of seafood products and a branding service at three different levels: single retail operations, wholesale foodservice operations and wholesale supplier operations. Cost per service is based on a fixed number of samples per year and includes use of the branded TruFish logo on retail packages and poster displays. It also includes a newsletter with the latest information on seafood product quality, safety, and sustainability.

TruFish’s service-based solution is built from a team equipped with DNA barcoding technical expertise, seafood industry know-how, and reliable business mentorship. Furthermore, the analytical testing laboratory associated with TruFish is already in place, ready to offer its DNA barcoding service. The Duke Marine Conservation Molecular Facility, based in Beaufort, NC, has all the necessary equipment and trained staff to provide the currently approved DNA barcoding of seafood products. With a modest initial investment TruFish could begin operating within months in order to address this urgent market need. Based on the initial success of the subscription-based business model, the company could readily expand its operations to other regions or nationwide by setting up local service providers and a network of FDA approved testing labs.

Team: Roxanne Nanninga, Nicholas School of the Environment, 2014, roxanne.nanninga@duke.edu
Gabriela Anhalzer, Nicholas School of the Environment, 2014, gabriela.anhalzer@duke.edu
Elizabeth DeMarco, Nicholas School of the Environment, 2014, elizabeth.demarco@duke.edu
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Other Products & Services

Turnout - Turnout is an API for real-time demographic data.

Team: Alex Browne, Pratt, 2014, sab60@duke.edu
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Internet, IT & Media

Vivera Designs - We at Vivera are dedicated to the plight of the modern woman: she’s fiercely individual, she knows what she wants, and she doesn’t waste time (or money) getting it.

Vivera Designs allows you to bring to life your own customized dresses through our 3D flash game platform. Think: the sandbox creativity of The Sims meets ZARA’s sophistication. It’s simple, specific, and fun – no technical dress pattern knowledge needed!

With the help of Vivera, you can finally create a dress as unique as you are.

It’s quality made by you.

Team: Angela Zhou, Trinity '14, zz30@duke.edu
Margaret Brown, Trinity '14, mmb41@duke.edu
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Other Products & Services

Student Competition: Honorable Mention Teams from Round 1

Pending eligibility verification, these teams are all eligible to create Indiegogo campaigns. The top performing teams will be invited to Demo Day based on the combination of Indiegogo results and Round 2 judging.

BuySignal - BuySignal is solving the problem of ineffective leads for businesses. By taking advantage of public data from Twitter, we can generate cost-effective, exclusive leads that are tailored to specific products and location. In an increasingly social age, we are able to provide a viable alternative to advertising and social media with simple metrics.

Team: Jesse Hu, Pratt School of Engineering, jesse.hu@duke.edu
Erfan Davami, University of Central Florida PhD Computer Science
Chris Jenkins, University of South Florida
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Internet, IT & Media

Cake - Cake is a social marketing platform that allows anyone to create a promotion and share that promotion through multiple social networks. A promotion might be the chance to win basketball tickets for visiting a website or candy for watching a video. Cake enables sellers to incentivize desired consumer behavior. Cakesters (Cake users) only pay for performed actions. Therefore, Cake is a risk-free tool for Cakesters to use. People who participate in promotions can win prizes and share deals with friends and their social networks. Instead of paying a third party traffic generator for page views, incentivize highly connected people to drive traffic to your website.

Team: Justin Kersey, Fuqua 2015, justin.kersey@fuqua.duke.edu
Balaji Mohanam, Fuqua 2015, balaji.mohanam@fuqua.duke.edu
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Internet, IT & Media

Deos Management - Deos Management makes niche communities more interactive by creating mobile apps, in conjunction with a celebrity partner, that promote engagement and user generated content.

Team: Jack Davis, Trinity, 2014, jcd49@duke.edu
Amay Jhaveri, Pratt, 2014, anj5@duke.edu
Lance Co Ting Keh, Pratt, 2014, loc2@duke.edu
Alex Lark, Pratt, 2015, alex.m.lark@gmail.com
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Track: Internet, IT & Media

DiGoro Inc. - There are approximately 30 million recreational sports players and 3.4 million recreational sport teams in the United States. However, there is not a single product that facilitates connections between sports players and teams.

DiGoro is a web-based platform and analytics tool aimed at facilitating connections between sports players and teams to enhance participation and dialogue in recreational sports. Our mission is to revolutionize the way people connect around recreational activities.

Team: Frank Oppong, Fuqua School of Business, 2015, frank.oppong@fuqua.duke.edu
Tim Morilla, Fuqua School of Business, 2015, timothy.morilla@fuqua.duke.edu
Yohan Bobcombe, Fuqua School of Business, 2015, yohan.bobcombe@fuqua.duke.edu
Dele Atoro, Brown University, Web Developer, dele.atoro@gmail.com
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Other Products & Services

EasySighting - Open water swimmers, such as triathletes, need to lift their heads out of the water periodically to see buoys in order to keep swimming straight. This head-up sighting is not only difficult to learn but also reduces swimming speed. Pool swimmers also need to be able to see in front of them if multiple swimmers share a lane.

There were 550,000 registered triathletes in the U.S. in 2012. Besides these serious triathletes, there are numerous unregistered triathletes and other open water swimmers. Furthermore, the average pool swimmer, essentially anyone who can swim, may experience peak hours in a pool and be required to share lanes.

Our product puts a mirror in front of the swimming goggles to let the swimmer view their forward path even when he or she is in the breathing position.

Team: Jun Yin, Pratt School of Engineering, 2014, jun.yin@duke.edu
Zhouyang Lu, Hohai University, lzyseu@gmail.com
Tan Zi, Pratt School of Engineering, 2014, tan.zi@duke.edu
Norman Pelak, Pratt School of Engineering, 2017, nfpelak@gmail.com
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Other Products & Services

EauFlow - There are significant water and energy savings to be realized if we can enhance household and small business adoption of water flow control systems.

We are developing a water flow control device that diminishes adoption barriers. Our device is being designed to cost less than $100, and does not require electricity or a plumber for installation. Eauflow intends to make this device available to the public as a commodity item marketed through home improvement and department stores.

Team: Paul E. Triulzi, Graduate Liberal Studies & Nicholas School, 2014, pet4@duke.edu
Aditya Murthy, Pratt, 2014, aditya.murthy@duke.edu
Hamed Honari, M.S.M.E. NCSU, 2013, hhonari@ncsu.edu
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Clean Energy

Education Now! - Education Now! seeks to revolutionize the education industry by directly connecting teachers with parents

Team: Chami Rupasinghe, Fuqua School of Business, 2015, chami.rupasinghe@fuqua.duke.edu
Sahil Segal, Fuqua School of Business, 2015, sahil.segal@fuqua.duke.edu
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Social Enterprises

elpis - Elpis is a digital therapist that uses a complex big data analytics algorithm to create a robust behavioral profile and diagnosis. Elpis continues to monitor and predict behavior of the user through various online sources and creates a chain analysis and persuasive interventions to help the use overcome addictions, set goals, monitor behavior, etc. We are creating versions for the general public, therapists, government health offices and insurance companies. We consider ourselves to be the AI therapist/ digital coach that uses Natural Language Processing to help clients succeed.

Team Leader: spencer gilbert, spencer.gilbert@fuqua.duke.edu, Fuqua - EMBA (CC, GEMBA, WEMBA)
Location: Raleigh, NC
Track: Healthcare & Life Sciences

Essig Education (EssigEd) - EssigEd is an educational company aspiring to improve both academic performance and financial literacy, through a product called ePoints. ePoints, which stands for educational points, will be the first web-based electronic points reward system which will modernize and standardize schools’ reward systems. Teachers will award points (electronically) to students that demonstrate good behavior. Students then in turn, use these points to purchase products/prizes of their choice, thus transacting a form of currency.

Team Leader: Richard Essig, richard.essig@duke.edu, Fuqua - EMBA (CC, GEMBA, WEMBA) 2013
Location: west chester, PA
Track: Social Enterprises

FlexWait - Every American has had some experience with the healthcare system. A common theme of each of these encounters are mind-numbing wait times. According to Forbes magazine, there are approximately 110M outpatient clinic visits each year. Even with a conservative wait time estimate of 23 minutes per visit, the authors estimated that approximately $500M in productivity losses arise each year from patient wait times. Such waits, however, are not only a drag on productivity but also negatively influence patient perception about healthcare overall. Frustrated by how much time they are asked to waste in order to see a doctor, many patients simply develop a negative attitude about the healthcare system and fail to engage it until a serious problem arises.

FlexWait is our solution to torturous wait times. Inspired by a Duke alumnus, recent leukemia survivor, and annoyed-with-wait-times patient, FlexWait is a mobile application designed to improve patient wait times and engagement with their clinic or hospital. The application involves a two-step implementation:

Step 1: The application allows patients to “check-in” at various points during their visit principally, when they reach the front desk, get called into a room, see the midlevel provider, see the doctor, and finally when they leave the facility. Each of these check-ins is time stamped and the data is ultimately shared with the clinic or hospital in order to improve their initial wait times.

Step 2: Once wait times have been evaluated and appropriate changes made, FlexWait becomes the clinic’s primary tool for managing the wait room. Patients check in on their phones when they arrive at the clinic and are called to see the nurse through their phones as well. In this way, the chaotic system of yelling outpatient names or handing out expensive beepers is eliminated. In addition, the application’s real time tracking allows front desk staff to send a mass notification to patients scheduled regarding delays or cancellations, thereby allowing patients to adjust when they come into the clinic. Finally, the application will be able to push surveys to the patient in order to assess satisfaction. Ultimately, we envision this tool being used to get feedback from patients post-operatively or as follow-up to their care.

Team: Christina Gainey, Trinity ’12, csun1215@gmail.com
Azadeh Moshiri, Trinity ’13, atmoshiri@gmail.com
Nikolaos Valilis, Trinity ’12, nvalilis@gmail.com
Matt Wagoner, Trinity ’12, w.matt.wagoner@gmail.com
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Healthcare & Life Sciences

HowiDidIt - HowiDidIt is an online mentorship platform that connects applicants with current students at top MBA programs. Team Leader: Chad Rose, czr2@duke.edu, Fuqua - Daytime MBA 2014 Team: Chad Rose, Fuqua School of Business ‘14, chad.rose@fuqua.duke.edu

Ishaan Acharya, Fuqua School of Business ‘14, ishaan.acharya@fuqua.duke.edu

Katherine Jarosz, Fuqua School of Business ‘14, katherine.jarosz@fuqua.duke.edu Location: Durham, NC Track: Internet, IT & Media

inFlo - inFlo is a software company developing a product for rapid multivariate data analysis. inFlo's product makes large-scale data analysis for all businesses more efficient with a cost effective and intuitive software tool. The prototype product has proven to be valuable for advanced data analysis, providing promise for the future of the company.

Team: Andrew Koff, Pratt School of Engineering, 2014, Andrew.Koff@duke.edu
Sean Scott, Trinty College of Arts and Sciences, 2015, Sean.Scott@duke.edu
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Internet, IT & Media

InRadius - InRadius is a user friendly mobile app that helps users navigate through life a little easier by having full control of their time. Our two-way communication and feedback system between vendor and user is the central core of our app.

Team: Larry Cumberbatch, Medical Physics Department, 2015, lcc15@duke.edu
Bret Lesavoy, Biology Major, Chemistry Minor, 2015, bsl12@duke.edu
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Internet, IT & Media

Internnection Research Networking - Internnection Research Networking aims to create an online network that will help high school students find viable science research opportunities. Performing science research during high school years is becoming increasingly popular as the national STEM initiative is pushing schools to get students involved in science, technology, engineering, and math, as there is a growing demand for not only those with STEM-‐related degrees, but those with degrees and extensive research experience. One of the most difficult tasks can be finding a mentor, a professional science researcher who is willing to take in one or more high school students into their lab for one or two summers. Many students do not get involved with the research they are truly interested, while some do not get to research at all, because of the difficulty of getting in touch with mentors and making good connections for research opportunities. This is where Internnection Research Networking comes in. Internnection aims to create a networking site for high school students and science researchers, through which high schools students can find interesting research and connect with professional researchers who are willing to take them in to their labs. Internnection also aims to organize and facilitate the relationship between the intern and mentor, allowing them to share research documents, safety protocols, daily/weekly/monthly task lists, etc. Furthermore, Internnection will provide a means for high school research teachers to manage their students and help them stay organized as they work to complete in research competitions after their summer research is complete. Internnection will make all of these processes easy and efficient, thus fostering the growth of high school research programs around the country and giving countless students the opportunity to get involved in STEM at a professional research level.

Team: Christopher Murphy, Pratt, 2015, cjm53@duke.edu
Jeffrey Caso, Georgetown University, 2015, jsc89@georgetown.edu
Zachary Kronstat, Swarthmore College, 2015, zkronst1@swarthmore.edu
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Other Products & Services

Mealify - Mealify is a personal nutritionist at your fingertips.

Team: Asif Rahman, Trinity 2015, ar241@duke.edu
Zhou Fang, Trinity, 2015, zf11@duke.edu
Dylan Robbins, Trinity, 2015, dylanbrobbins@gmail.com
Bradley Sykes, Trinity, 2015, bradleysykes1@gmail.com
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Internet, IT & Media

MyGarage - MyGarage is an e-commerce app that uses pre-existing offline communities to ensure trust between the buyer and seller. We are currently focused on providing schools and colleges with closed networks on which students, faculty, and parents can buy and sell goods to and from each other. By keeping networks exclusive to students, faculty, and parents at a particular school, we ensure trust; those who may be wary of buying from or selling to an anonymous user on a site like Craigslist are more inclined to use our app.

Team: Noah Kane, Trinity College, 2017, noah.kane@duke.edu
Rajan Mehra, Trinity College, 2017, rajan.mehra@duke.edu
Spencer Davidson, Trinity College, 2017, spencer.davidson@duke.edu
Steven Jacobson, Pratt School of Engineering, 2017, steven.jacobson@duke.edu
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Internet, IT & Media

North Carolina Common Sense - North Carolina Common Sense (NCCS) is an organization designed to bridge the gap between North Carolina’s citizens and the budgetary decisions made within the state. Public information regarding spending by the state and local governments often contain complex analyses and use unfiltered data sets, making it difficult for the public to understand the decisions being made by its elected officials.

The goal of NCCS is to make government operations and finances more accessible to the general public for review. The hope is that access to clear and informative explanations of public policy decisions will empower citizens to create a positive discourse for policy related change in North Carolina and hold the government accountable for wasteful spending.

Team: Steven Blaser, Trinity, c/o 2014, shb18@duke.edu
Michael Schreiner, Trinity, c/o 2015, michaelscottschreiner@gmail.com
Ian McKiernan, Trinity, c/o 2015, mckiernan7@gmail.com
Lauren Kelly, Trinity, c/o 2016, lrk12@duke.edu
Ken Rogerson, Director of Undergraduate Studies, Public Policy Department, rogerson@duke.edu
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Social Enterprises

Okukula Capital - Okukula Capital, an impact investing firm, provides debt and equity investments to small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in the Central Uganda through an innovative model that drastically reduces transaction costs per investment and limits investor risk.

Team: Craig Moxley, Trinity ‘14, craig.moxley@duke.edu
Marshall Vingi, Trinity ‘14, marshall.vingi@duke.edu
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Social Enterprises

Powerhouse Protein - Meet a new kind of supplement company that brings together fitness and everyday health with the highest quality ingredients. Powerhouse Protein is a company dedicated to building products engineered to help you reach your fitness goals and live a healthy lifestyle. Don't sacrifice your long-term wellbeing to see results in the gym. With Powerhouse, for the first time, you can do both.

Team: Devin Solanki, Trinity 2016, dms70@duke.edu
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Other Products & Services

proQpon - proQpon is a web/mobile tool that allows users to shop using discount coupons. proQpon offers a platform with different functionalities where companies publish their discount coupons and users navigate in the website/app to find those discounts to be able to present them in the shop at the time of making the purchase. The shops have total freedom to publish coupons. That means they will be able to upload as much coupons as they want and also they will be able to select which type of offer they want to publish and when to publish it. The users will have access to all the offers and they will have the option to select their favorite shops in order to receive alerts every time a coupon is updated. Furthermore, proQpon offers geolocalization services in which through the usage of the smartphone’s GPS, proQpon identifies the zone where the user is located and indicates the available offers that are close to its location. This feature allows to identify buyers in a specific area in order to give them an incentive to shop. Finally, proQpon contains various retail coupons grouped into different categories and it is a very friendly and easy to use application.

Team: Sergio Wolman, The Fuqua School of Business, Class of 2014, sergio.wolman@duke.edu
Denise Latarowski, The Fuqua School of Business, Class of 2014, denise.latarowski@duke.edu
Yonathan Lapchik, The Fuqua School of Business, Class of 2014, yonathan.lapchik@duke.edu
Maia Hojman, The Fuqua School of Business, Class of 2013, maia.hojman@duke.edu
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Internet, IT & Media

Repair-My-Car.com - Repair-My-Car.com is the first online consumer-to-business exchange that connects vehicle owners in search of automotive repair with providers of such services. When your vehicle is damaged, Repair-My-Car.com provides a free assessment provided by an in-house, expert mechanic who is completely independent of your potential repair provider. We also provide a free rental vehicle immediately after your damage is incurred so that you can take valuable time to access our site, compare quote/bid prices and quality reviews of service providers, and decide on the best shop for your needs. Repair-My-Car.com, for the first time in industry history, truly forces market providers to compete on the basis of price and quality. Additionally, it breaks down the massive information asymmetry that exists between consumers and providers in the current automotive repair transactions.

Team: Evan Speece, Fuqua Daytime MBA, Class of 2015, evan.speece@fuqua.duke.edu
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Internet, IT & Media

Sino-Composting - China, the most populous nation in the world, produces more 1/3 of the world’s trash, a large portion of which is composed of organic matter (food remains). Government action has in recent years increased recycling of plastics and metals through monetary incentives, but composting food remains is unincentivized. Frequently, organic matter is simply left to rot at street corners or buried in unofficial landfills, contaminating surrounding land and water. The problem is prevalent throughout China but is most visible in medium-sized cities large enough to have significant amounts of trash without the infrastructure for handling the trash.

My solution to the problem is having a pilot operation in a medium-sized city with a metropolitan population of under 5 million people. The operation involves constructing food remain/organic material and recyclable material “accepting stations” in neighborhoods where participants are paid per kilo of remains they bring in. The remains are then composted and sold to farmers while the recyclable materials are recycled.

Team: Jiawei Zhang, Trinity College, 2017, jz134@duke.edu
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Social Enterprises

Sora - A cloud gaming platform for all types of devices

Team: David Le, Trinity '14, dl103@duke.edu
Gang (William) Li, Trinity '14, gl56@duke.edu
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Internet, IT & Media

symphonizeMe - Imagine the undisclosed musical talent that lies in the world today. From home videos on YouTube to sidewalk performances, artists everyday are trying to make the professional scene. However, many of these musicians struggle to fund the production of their own music. This includes professional studio time, experienced producers, and equipment. We look to solve this problem that is hindering their careers.

On symphonizeMe, musicians can overcome these obstacles. Through a web of crowdfunding, they can support their peers while receiving support themselves. An artist has the opportunity to receive complete funding for his or her musical endeavors by making a small monetary donation to another artist. symphonizeMe is a unique crowdfunding platform: by musicians, for musicians.

Team: Hooman Azad, Trinity College, 2017, haa11@duke.edu
Bohan Lin, Trinity College, 2017, bl123@duke.edu
Richard Liu, Pratt School of Engineering, 2017, rrl6@duke.edu
Raiyan Sobhan, Pratt School of Engineering, 2017, rts15@duke.edu
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Internet, IT & Media

Targeted Coupons and Processing - We are creating a platform for manufacturers, consumers, and retailers to solve the problems around processing retail coupons. We are creating an easy interface for consumer goods manufacturers to reach out to consumers with directly targeted coupon offerings, a mobile app for storing coupons and helping consumers organize and plan their shopping trips around coupons that they have, and a system for retailers to process coupons electronically without requiring the typical hassle involved with processing a paper coupon.

Team: Sarah Vanden Broek, Fuqua Daytime MBA, 2015, Sarah.Vandenbroek@duke.edu
Adam Tyner, Fuqua Daytime MBA, 2015, Adam.Tyner@duke.edu
John Peretti, john.peretti@duke.edu, Fuqua - Daytime MBA 2015
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Other Products & Services

The E3 Institute - We are concerned with the long-term outlook and stability of our civilization. We find it unacceptable that even with today’s current treatment methods over 1 billion people do not have access to clean water.

We believe that most well intended water quality projects fail, not because of technological limitations, but because at a fundamental level the solution was not what the people wanted.

We want to manufacture water treatment tools and make them available on the shelves of stores and markets so that people can choose their water treatment technology, by voting with their dollar.

Our first product involves one of the oldest know disinfection technologies: fermentation. The product of fermentation, ethanol, disinfects contaminating microorganisms and the resulting yeast provides a nutrient rich and desirable end product. The goal is to produce a user-friendly fermentation kit for the disinfection of water that produces clean water with the lowest feasible ethanol concentration. This technology has potential for easy packaging, distribution, and marketing. We believe the end product will be useful in flood relief situations where water is abundant, but all other resources have been depleted.

Team: Ashley Thomson, Pratt School of Engineering, 2014, ashley.thomson@duke.edu
Thomas Worley-Morse, Pratt School of Engineering, 2014, thomas.morse@duke.edu
Location: Cary, NC
Track: Other Products & Services

Thursday - A social networking platform for sharing personal plans.

Team: Julian Tigler, Pratt School of Engineering, 2014, julianbtigler@gmail.com
Glenn Rivkees, Pratt School of Engineering, 2014, glenn.rivkees@gmail.com
Hailey Friedman, Emory University, 2011, hsfried7@gmail.com
James Rubinowitz, Emory University 2013, james.rubinowitz@gmail.com
Sarah Kovolisky, Kean University 2010, sarahkovolisky@gmail.com
Location: New York, NY
Track: Internet, IT & Media

Truss Tissues - Did you know that May 15th to June 15th is Tourette syndrome awareness month? Do you know what the word “zugzwang” means? Did you know that 49% population choose toilet paper as their ‘greatest island necessity?’ If we could bring all of these together and improve the awareness of the world around us while serving a need, we would feel like we were living for a purpose. And we do not want to settle for anything less.

Truss is all about making the quotidian a little different. By printing on tissue and toilet papers, we aim to change the way people think and the way people give. By combining the necessary and the beneficial we aim to do a little good. Truss comes in two dimensions.

1. Truss 1: By printing symbols of specific causes on tissue paper and toilet paper we aim to do a little good in the World. For instance a pink ribbon (standard representation of breast cancer) may be printed on tissue paper and toilet paper. 20% of the profit generated is given to a cancer organization partner of our choice.

2. Truss 2: By printing educative material, for example dictionary words or facts on tissue and toilet paper we aim to make an impact in people’s mode of thinking and learning.

So if you like solving problems, being conscious, and improving the world around you, you are already part of the Truss family. This is just our way of officially welcoming you.

Team: Moyo Orekoya, Pratt School of Engineering, 2014, moo10@duke.edu
Aditya Prathipati, Pratt School of Engineering, 2014, aditya.prathipati
Ben Scott, Pratt School of Engineering, 2014, Benjamin.scott@duke.edu
Harsh Ambekar, Pratt School of Engineering, 2014, harsh.ambekar@duke.edu
Hunter Roux, Pratt School of Engineering, 2014, hunter.roux@duke.edu
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Other Products & Services

Up Fashions - Custom made women's professional apparel, including blazers, pencil skirts, and pants, all made in the USA. Each piece is cut and sewn to fit the woman perfectly, so she does not have to worry about tailoring or a poor fit. These pieces are meant for undergraduate and graduate women who are interviewing, networking, and preparing for their careers. They are all produced in North Carolina and will be priced less than their off the rack competitor pieces.

Team: Kelsey Hogg, Fuqua School of Business, 2014, kelsey.hogg@fuqua.duke.edu
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Other Products & Services

Who, Moose? Hummus - We are an artisan hummus company. Our goal is to show the Duke community that hummus is a delicious and convenient healthy snack.

Team: Christian Britto, Trinity College, 2014, cab72@duke.edu
Nate Mcclafferty, Trinity College, 2015, nsm10@duke.edu
Kyle Moran, Trinity College, 2015, kdm33@duke.edu
Brian Schoepfer, Trinity College, 2015, bss17@duke.edu
Lynn Vandendriessche, Trinity College, 2014, lhv2@duke.edu
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Other Products & Services

Open Competition - Top 30 Alumni / Faculty / Staff Teams from Round 1

Alumni / Faculty / Staff Teams, as well as Student Teams that were not originated by Students or otherwise not eligible for the student competition, like with more revenue or funding than allowed in the competition.

Pending eligibility verification, these teams are all eligible to create Indiegogo campaigns. If available to come to Durham, they can present at Demo Day pending the completion of deliverables to a satisfactory level.

ADADA - ADADA allows corporations to reap the benefits of Big Data in a fraction of the standard implementation time and without forcing them to change their underlying database infrastructure and capabilities. It also eliminates the data risks that accompany massive database transformations while eliminating the business risk of not utilizing Big Data to stay relevant in the marketplace. Furthermore, for those companies that have already begun transforming their databases, the performance and adaptability of ADADA’s solution is superior to any other Big Data solution on the market.

Team Leader: Adam Mangone, adam.mangone@gmail.com (Fuqua - Daytime MBA 2010)
Location: Atlanta, GA
Track: Internet, IT & Media

Agility4Life - Agility4Life is a health monitoring system for seniors. The system uses latest sensor & imaging technologies to detect when a senior falls and alerts emergency responders quickly. In addition, it monitors activity patterns of seniors unobtrusively and uses sophisticated algorithms to assess risk of falls, early signs of dementia or such diseases, and recommends interventions by physicians, family, and caregivers *only* when needed, giving seniors complete privacy, while providing timely care.

Team Leader: Uday Kiran Chaka, uday@agility4life.com (Fuqua - Daytime MBA 2006)
Location: Mountain View, CA
Track: Healthcare & Life Sciences

BizLogr - Professionals work twice for every task: once to complete it and again to report on it. The reporting overhead is wasteful and unproductive. BizLogr builds software for SMBs that automates expense reporting (mileage logs, timesheets, invoices, expense reports) to eliminate the need to fill out reports. We transform expense reporting into reviewing auto-generated reports from mining existing data like calendar, email, phone and financial records.

Team: Stefan Negritoiu, Trinity, 2002, stefan@bizlogr.com
Charlie Kindel, charlie@kindel.com
Location: Seattle, WA
Track: Internet, IT & Media

Coheezion, Inc. - Coheezion was created to provide a deeper level of insight and management capability across massive and growing data sets, helping customers gain visilibility into their data and more efficiently manage their daily tasks, and more effectively make decisions. Coheezion’s decision analytics provides an automated framework to make and act upon decisions based on a greater number of data inputs, and quickly analyzes multiple decision scenarios to help companies be more efficient, and more effective, in managing their business.

Coheezion’s decision analytics improves a company’s bottom line by automating the collection, review and analysis of decision criteria, and can provide significant top line improvements by enabling companies to gain a deeper understanding of their data and how they could respond before they make decisions. By automating the data collection process, companies can realize significant savings by no longer having to collect, organize, and report on data manually. The automated correlation and analysis capabilities allow companies to become dramatically more effective by providing broader visibility across more data sources, and a unified way to show the relationships between these data points.

This gives users more insight, and a deeper understanding of what is going on across multiple sets of data, and significantly speeds the analysis process, which reduces overall cost.

Team: Dave Anderson, Fuqua School of Business, Global Executive MBA, 2010, 31danderson@gmail.com
Location: Saratoga, CA
Track: Internet, IT & Media

Collegiate Suite - Collegiate Suite is a fully-integrated online community management platform for universities, colleges, and departments that is affordable, fun to use, and quick to master. Users will be able to easily manage their websites while ensuring compliance and be able to keep tabs on analytics and recruitment goals.

Team: Kurt Grandis, School of Medicine, 2002; kurt.grandis@alumni.duke.edu
Danvers Fleury; danvers@verifiedstudios.com
Adam Schultz; adam@verifiedstudios.com
Location: Chapel Hill, NC
Track: Internet, IT & Media

CuttingEdgeGamer LLC - Cutting Edge Gamer was founded by company President James Walsh in April 2010, the e-commerce website was launched in September that year and we closed our first customer less than two months later in November. In little more than three years of operation, we have expanded our PC gaming graphics card leasing service to more than 300 customers and 390+ cards leased out!

We are primed for growth: we have a solid $20K/month revenue stream, a service that is in high demand from a growing PC gaming market, a captive customer base and a business model that is proven with excellent financial results!

Team: James Walsh, Pratt School of Engineering, 1996, james@cuttingedgegamer.com
Location: Austin, TX Track: Internet, IT & Media

Driven - The connected car market will attain mass-market penetration in the next few years, seeing the number of vehicles with built-in connectivity explode from 10% of the overall market today to 90% by 2020. Meanwhile, consumers expect to access the same level of technology that is available outside of the car. The most flexible way to do this is through the cloud.

The main barriers for developing remote management applications are (1) the lack of standardized API (application program interface) among auto manufacturers and (2) the limited documentation and support of these API’s. Currently, connected car app developers must do customized integration for each automaker.

Driven is building a platform that can talk to any connected car by providing a single API in the cloud. Driven aims to be the ultimate car app developers’ platform by offering

- connectivity to various cars,

- a vehicle simulator for testing,

- data caching services,

- and secure end user authorization.

We want to enable more rapid turnover in car app innovation.

Team: Liz Slocum Jensen, Fuqua School of Business, 2010D, liz@drivencomputing.com
Dave Jensen, dave.jensen@drivencomputing.com
David Pfeffer, david.pfeffer@drivencomputing.com
Location: San Francisco, CA
Track: Internet, IT & Media

Education IQ - Our company is in the process of developing an online education platform that adapts to the strengths and weaknesses of the user. Initially aimed at individuals in the field of radiology and other medical fields that require image interpretation skills, this platform uses special algorithms to determine the strengths and weaknesses of a user of the platform, and then uses that information to select educational material that will be the most effective.

The market size is about 1.2 M possible users in the US alone. It would require around $2.3 M to get the startup running, market the product around the US, and start to market the product around the world.

The team behind the product consists of Dr. Maciej Mazurowski, a computer vision and machine learning expert, Dr. Lars Grimm, a chief radiology resident, and myself, Zack Silber, who has the technical background to bring this website to the consumer.

Team: Zack Silber, Pratt School of Engineering, 2014, zacksilber12@gmail.com
Dr. Maciej Mazurowski, Asst Professor of Radiology, Duke University School of Medicine, maciej.mazurowski@duke.edu
Dr. Lars Grimm, Chief Radiology Resident, Duke University Medical Center, lars.grimm@duke.edu
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Internet, IT & Media

Good Samaritan - Good Samaritan is offering a real-time, location-based platform (online and app) linking individual volunteers to service organizations. The volunteer profile will contain intelligent matching criteria and preferences, status of all prior or pending volunteer efforts, as well as rewards points tracking. Volunteers will be able to identify, plan, and execute work more efficiently and optimally, while organizations will be able to manage activities more effectively and identify high-interest future volunteers. Larger organizations with many smaller charity groups within them (colleges with numerous Greek organizations for example), would benefit from a consolidated service management platform, while the members of these organizations would benefit from improved efficiency in volunteerism as well as recognition for each and every good deed performed. The largest service organizations to the smallest event-specific efforts could all tap into the same system to ensure visibility, and smart-matching with potential volunteers. Good Samaritan will be the user-friendly, efficient bridge that closes the gap between volunteer supply and demand.

Team: Reed Kuhn, Fuqua, 2006
Eden Yimam, Agrocampus Ouest, 2010
Location: Rockville, MD
Track: Social Enterprises

LA Wyld - Our mission:

Providing long term mentoring to underserved youth through wilderness programs focused on leadership, stewardship and unity.

In Los Angeles there are youth as old as thirteen to fourteen who have never been to the beach. We find this unfortunately remarkable and necessarily remedied. Renowned author Richard Louv introduced the concept of ""Nature-Deficit Disorder"" in 2005 with his bestselling book, “Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder.” The name acts as descriptor of the human costs of estrangement from nature that many underserved urban youth face.

We are excited to push the boundaries and offer unique solutions to the need through programming in three ways: by creating social unity among communities through a ‘sister schools outings,’ program; by offering a long-term engagement with youth through collaboration with a collective impact or ‘backbone’ nonprofit model; and by offering long-term mentorship.

Team: Chris Chandler, Duke Connection: Bachelor of Arts, Trinity, 2003 at Duke; Chris.Chandler@lawyld.org
Sonja Williams; Sonja@lawyld.org
Meghan Shearer; Meghan.Shearer@lawyld.org
Franchezska Zamora; Francheazska@lawyld.org
Location: W Hollywood, CA
Track: Social Enterprises

LuxeVault - LuxeVault is an elegant way to manage and authenticate all of your luxury goods. Add the details of all of your watches, bags, purses, wallets, shoes and other luxury and fashion items directly from your phone. Add your own high quality images of your luxury and fashion items or take quick shots from within the app. Details including brand, color, material, serial number and more can be added to each item stored in the app.

Team: Barry Talley, Trinity, 2006, Barry.Talley@alumni.duke.edu
Location: NYC, NY
Track: Other Products & Services

Mati Energy - Healthy energy drink

Team: Tatiana Birgisson, Trinity '12
Soumik Paul, Fuqua '14
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Other Products & Services

Methodally - Research is hard. Undergraduates, graduate students, professionals—even professors¬—often struggle to define a solid research question, select an appropriate research method, find or collect data, analyze the results, and share the findings. While there are helpful tools for individual steps, such as organizing literature reviews, managing projects and teams, and running statistics, there are no platforms that help a user to walk through every step of the process.

Great mentors often fill this role, but too many students and professionals find themselves unable to access help when they need it. For graduate students paying top dollar to complete a degree program in a set amount of time, delays can mean spending thousands and delaying graduation—and earning potential—to finish one last requirement.

Starting out, Methodally will offer student and institutional subscriptions. Students and professors at subscribing institutions will be able to link profiles and track department-wide and student-specific milestones. Whether browsing their dashboard on the web or thumbing through student projects on a smartphone or tablet, professors will love the ability to more easily manage and advise students. Automated reminders will help advisors to keep students from struggling and falling through the cracks. Students will be able to complete modules that help them get off to the right start and think through every step of the process. Students in a crunch will be able to purchase live video or chat support in increments as low as 15 minutes.

In the future, the platform will be expanded to offer the same great assistance for professionals who find themselves needing to organize and implement a research project but lack in-house advisors to help them deliver results on time and within budget.

Team: Eric Green, Duke Global Health Institute, Faculty, eric.green@duke.edu
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Other Products & Services

MobileSuites - MobileSuites creates custom guest-facing apps for hotels, allowing guests to discover and access hotel services. Our apps will allow guests to order room service, make dinner reservations, request room amenities, and look up any hotel services directly from their phone or tablet. Additionally, we will provide customer-level analytics and a platform for hotels to directly communicate with their guests.

Team: Basel Fakhoury, Trinity, 2012, bfakhoury@gmail.com
Dennis Meng, Dennis.f.meng@gmail.com
Location: Cambridge, MA
Track: Internet, IT & Media

PrevoTV - PrevoTV is a search and discovery application designed to find timely, topical TV programs that match each viewers’ diverse interests in a long-tail, on-demand world.

Consumer dissatisfaction with onscreen and interactive TV guides is well established. “Just tell me what to watch” and “500 channels and nothing on” are common refrains among obsessive and occasional TV viewers alike. Current TV program guides all feature the ubiquitous, but obsolete schedule grid and a poor discovery experience. Viewers need a better way to optimize their time in an increasingly complex environment of rapidly proliferating video services, devices and content.

PrevoTV has developed a new approach to TV discovery, leveraging social media content in new ways to generate highly personalized recommendations and search results. Using recent advances in natural language processing and big data, our algorithm finds high-quality programming most aligned with each user’s individual interests based on their social media profile.

Our technology enables TV producers, distributors, and video service providers to improve their discovery experience creating more value and satisfaction for viewers, and new ad models with more precise targeting for advertisers. We also plan to aggregate and productize our own metadata solution and compete directly with Rovi Corporation (formerly part of TV Guide), the leader in media metadata and guidance technology.

Team: Owen Silver, Fuqua, 1990, owen760@gmail.com
Todd Tyrrell, VP Business Development
Michael Goerner, CTO
Location: Boulder, CO
Track: Internet, IT & Media

RocketBolt - RocketBolt is an automated solution for helping companies maximize the value they get from their websites. In less than five minutes, RocketBolt can be added to any website, and it generates more traffic, more social media engagement, and more sales without any additional management or maintenance.

Team: Aaron Dinin, Trinity '05, aaron@rocketbolt.com
Andy Roth, Duke Law JD '11, LLMLE '12, andy@rocketbolt.com
Matt Hofstadt, matt@rocketbolt.com
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Internet, IT & Media

SCW Systems - Population growth, along with an ever increasing desire for meat and animal products, mean that the production of animal waste is increasing faster than it can currently be sustainably processed. This problem of excessive animal waste is perhaps most obvious in the Netherlands, which has a population of 17 million people in an area that is less than a third the size of North Carolina. The Netherlands produces over 66 million tons of animal waste (cow and pig) per year, of which 20 million tons has to be officially exported to Germany or elsewhere because the government has enforced stringent rules about the maximum allowable amount of manure that can be spread over agriculture land. It is clear that new technologies are needed as farmers, politicians, and even citizens are anxious to solve this problem.

Supercritical water gasification is capable of rapidly converting all of the organic material in animal waste into biofuels including hydrogen (H2) and methane (also called natural gas, CH4) resulting in a conversion efficiency of >99% on a dry, ash-free basis. Reactions are very fast, and so the technology has a small footprint. SCW Systems is and will continue to develop and commercialize supercritical water gasification technology to convert excess manure, along with other biomass and agricultural wastes, into biofuel, which will then be sold to the Dutch government.

Supercritical water gasification has not previously been commercialized successfully due to technical and economic barriers. SCW Systems has overcome the technical barriers to implementation of supercritical water gasification. Conditions in the Netherlands are such that the technology can generate revenue from multiple sources and be turned into a profitable business.

Team: Doug Hendry, PhD, Pratt School of Engineering, Postdoctoral Associate, doug.hendry@duke.edu
Gerard Essing, gerard.essing@gmail.com
Eric Vos, eric@scwsystems.nl
Suzanne Vos
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Clean Energy

Sealed - Sealed is an energy company that guarantees savings from home efficiency improvements. Following the installation of energy-saving home improvements, Sealed replaces homeowner utility bills with a single Sealed Energy Bill guaranteed to be lower than normal. Sealed has three simple goals:

1. Guarantee the savings of every home efficiency improvement

2. Replace the utility customer relationship

3. Create a large recurring revenue stream

Team: Patrick McNamara, Nicholas School, 2010, patrick.mcnamara@alumni.duke.edu
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Track: Clean Energy

Seeds - Seeds is a platform that builds into games so that players can make microloans through their favorite gaming titles. Seeds gets capital in the hands of entrepreneurs in the developing world, while extending the reach, retention, and revenue for a gaming company.

Team: Rachel Cook, T'06, rachel.cook@alumni.duke.edu
Hollen Reischer, T'06, hollen.reischer@alumni.duke.edu
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Track: Social Enterprises

Solar Stream Innovations LLC - Solar Stream Innovations LLC is developing a patent pending device to concentrate solar energy, without using lenses or mirrors, and is integrating its device into a solar energy system capable of 24-hour roof-top electricity generation and heating. Integrating our device with a commercially available heat to electricity conversion technology leads to 25% more solar heat collection during the winter, electrical savings during the summer, and converting back-up generation equipment from a potential liability with a negative ROI into an asset with a positive ROI.

Team: Jeffrey Lee, Pratt, 2010, JeffLee5761@gmail.com
Marcus Myers
Brett Crowley
Location: Chino Hills, CA
Track: Clean Energy

Soundscope - Soundscope is an innovative way to choose your night out based on the music you love.

It is a mobile platform that connects the local nightlife scene through music.

Soundscope is the first local search tool to let you easily and quickly find bars and clubs by musical preference, in real time.

Team:ABHAY JAIN – Founder/Co-CEO – Duke JD/MBA ‘13 abhay@soundscope.co
MATT CATALANO – Founder/Co-CEO – Duke JD ‘12 matt@soundscope.co
LEONARDO PANEQUE – Lead Developer – AFR Systems; former international DJ
JAMES CHANA – CMO Candidate – Ogilvy & Mather; former international DJ
CHRISTOPHER PIRO – CTO Candidate – Airtime; former lead developer for Facebook Chat
Location: New York, NY
Track: Internet, IT & Media

Style the Aisle - Style the Aisle is an online bridal boutique that will reenergize bridesmaid fashion by connecting brides with designers and inviting them to rent designer bridesmaid dresses for their wedding party.

Our objective is to:

• Allow brides and bridesmaids access to a limited selection of premium designer bridesmaids dresses they can borrow.

• Provide designers access to potential future consumers.

Team Leader: Erica Gellerman, erica@styletheaisle.com (Fuqua - Daytime MBA 2012)
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Track: Other Products & Services

STYLIST - STYLIST is a peer-to-peer shopping platform, creating a fashion culture allowing users to shop closets of individuals who look just like them. STYLIST attacks the challenge of the buy and throw culture, buyer’s remorse and occasion buying. Furthermore, the platform serves to disrupt the fashion industry from “standard” models to a real and inclusive model.

Team: Danielle James, Trinity 2006 danielle@stylistapp.com
Kwadwo Acheampong, Trinity 2006 kwad@stylistapp.com
Lauren Demarest, Lauren@stylistapp.com
Will Ellis, Will@stylistapp.com
Location: New York, NY
Track: Other Products & Services

TechPay LLC - TechPay Mobile Payment Systems - SwiftPay TechPay LLC first system made for grocery stores and supermarkets.

Team Leader: Ross Markbreiter, rossm@techpay.mobi (The Graduate School )
Location: Apex, NC
Track: Other Products & Services

Tom & Jenny's Candy Company - Tom & Jenny’s mission is to commercialize delicious all-natural candies that fight cavities. We aim to become the number 1brand for moms and children in a $2.2B addressable market.

Team: Thomas Thekkekandam, Fuqua and Duke Law School, 2010, tommy@tomandjennys.com
Sindhura Citineni, UNC - Dental School, 2010, doctorcdds@gmail.com
Location: New York, NY
Track: Other Products & Services

tripchi - tripchi is a mobile app that serves up recommendations of things to do in the airport based on your personality, interests and flight info, and offers exclusive deals on food, drink, and shopping opportunities, the ability to connect with other travelers, as well as detailed content to explore the airport. We provide airport vendors with a technology platform to conduct targeted advertising campaigns including contextually-driven deals and offers.

Team: Chandra Jacobs, Trinity, 2004, cj@tripchi.com
Location: Cambridge, MA
Track: Internet, IT & Media

UPSTREAM THERAPEUTICS - Upstream Therapeutics is a spinoff company from the departments of Surgery and Biomedical Engineering at Duke University. Our proprietary molecules work by preventing the improper activation of immune cells, an early stage of autoimmune disorders like Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE). SLE, commonly referred to as lupus is a chronic, autoimmune disease that is damaging to skin, joints, and/or organs inside the body. 1.5 million Americans suffer from SLE with 20,000 new cases being reported annually in the US. Globally, it is estimated that 5 million people suffer from this debilitating, autoimmune disease. Currently, there is no cure for SLE. GlobalData estimates that the global SLE therapeutics market is currently worth approximately $600m and is forecast to reach $1.6 billion by 2018. There is a need to develop a therapeutic that will treat SLE before it develops and attacks healthy tissue. Upstream Therapeutics is developing proprietary treatments that aim to tackle SLE in the earliest stages of disease progression. We believe our therapy will address an unmet clinical need, have broader applicability compared to existing therapies and therefore claim a large market share. Upstream Therapeutics is seeking $1.5 million for preclinical IND-enabling studies.

Team: Hemraj Juwarker Ph.D, Postdoc-Department of Surgery, Duke University Medical Center, Duke 2008, haj2@duke.edu
Eda K. Holl Ph.D, Postdoc-Department of Surgery, Duke University Medical Center, UNC 2010 eda.holl@duke.edu
Jennifer Gamboa, Ph.D candidate,Duke-Pratt 2016 jennifer.gamboa@duke.edu
Michael Giuffre, MBA candidate, Duke-Fuqua 2014 michael.giuffre@duke.edu
Bruce Sullenger PhD, Professor-Department of Surgery, Duke University Medical Center bruce.sullenger@duke.edu
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Healthcare & Life Sciences

Upswing - There is a major education gap across the world.

From the urban metropolis of Chicago to the sprawling city of New Mumbai, many students living in this age of educational revolution are still being left behind. Many innovative educators and education-based models require such a quorum of students that we only see such innovations in cities like New York or Washington, D.C.

But what about the other 97% of students who don’t live in these urban centers? I grew up in South Georgia. My high school class dropped 50% from Freshman Year until the 12th Grade. Another 1/3 of my 12th Grade class didn’t make it across the stage during my graduation.

And the startling revelation is that the innovative techniques of Jeffrey Canada and Salman Khan are light years from making their way to places like my hometown. That’s why we created Ink*. We believe every child should have the opportunity to succeed.

There is a major education gap across the world.

From the urban metropolis of Chicago to the red clay of Atlanta, many students living in this age of educational revolution are still being left behind. Many innovative educators and education-based models require such a quorum of students that we only see such innovations in cities like New York or Washington, D.C.

But what about the other 97% of students who don’t live in these urban centers? I grew up in southern Georgia. My high school class dropped 50% from my freshman year until the 12th grade. Another 1/3 of my class didn’t make it across the stage during my graduation. The startling revelation is that the innovative techniques of Jeffrey Canada and Salman Khan are light years from making their way to places like my hometown. That’s why we created Upswing. We believe every child should have the opportunity to succeed.

Upswing is not just another fly-by-night tutoring program. We expect our students to succeed through our specific approach. We take advantage of what is happening around the world and apply it to the classrooms and living rooms of students who need help the most. This is why we created Upswing.

Team: Melvin Hines, Jr., Duke Law & Fuqua School of Business, 2009 & 2011, melvin@upswi.ng
Alex Pritchett, UNC 2010, alex@upswi.ng
Gabe Pappalardo, NC State Ph.D., 2014, gabe.pappalardo@gmail.com
Location: Durham, NC
Track: Social Enterprises

Urova Medical - Urova Medical is developing novel surgical treatment for stress urinary incontinence (SUI). SUI affects nearly 1/3 women in the US and it is estimated that $17B are spent annually on treatment and maintenance. Urova Medical has developed a novel single incision solution to this condition

Team: Vidhan Agrawal, Pratt School of Engineering, 2012, vidhan.agrawal@urovamed.com
Richard Lee, Pratt School of Engineering, 1998, ril9010@gmail.com
Shida Li, Johns Hopkins University, 2012
Greg Mitchell, Frank Yao, Bilal Chugtai, Roger Dmochowski, John Meadows
Location: Memphis, TN
Track: Healthcare & Life Sciences

V.Frame - Over the years, we as humans have made significant advances with technology and specifically with our forms of communication. New gadgets and gizmos have been created with touch screens and sleek interfaces for making it easier to place phone calls and stay visually connected with our friends and family. However, there is one demographic that is clearly being left out: over 49 million Americans age 45 years and older. Where are the gadgets for the less tech-savvy, primarily our seniors? This group of people should have a way to visually connect to those who are no longer close by. This easy connection is the V.Frame (Patent Pending).

Team Leader: Natasha Williams, natasha.williams@alumni.duke.edu (Trinity 2013)
Team: Natasha Williams, Trinity, 2013, natasha.williams@alumni.duke.edu
Location: Brandon, MS
Track: Internet, IT & Media

Western Oncolytics Ltd. - Western Oncolytics Ltd. is developing an immuno-oncolytic: a virus that is genetically modified to only infect, and kill, cancer cells, while also guiding the immune system to fight cancer much as vaccines fight other diseases. This approach to treating cancer does not have the harsh side-effects associated with current treatments (e.g. chemotherapy, surgery), and can spread throughout the patient’s body treating tumors that were never even identified, thereby having both significantly greater efficacy and safety. Further, this therapy can address a wide range of cancers (liver, breast, prostate, pancreatic, kidney, head and neck, ovarian, colorectal, etc.), and work synergistically with other treatments.

Importantly, this field of technology has already been proven to work. Three companies have successfully completed clinical efficacy studies, and one has already successfully completed all clinical trials and is now awaiting approval. More importantly, our technology works better. These already-proven therapies were based on science a decade old and were very much a proof-of-concept for the field. Our technology is based on the most cutting-edge science and has demonstrated superior results in animal testing.

Our current objective is to take our therapy from animal testing and to prove it in a small, initial clinical trial with human patients. Then, we will partner with an established pharmaceutical company to finish remaining clinical trials and deliver it to patients across the world.

Western Oncolytics’ therapy will not end all cancer, but when successful, it will aid or even cure tens or hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions, of patients across the world every year, and generate billions of dollars in annual sales while doing so.

Team: Kurt M. Rote, Pratt School of Engineering, 2004, kurt@westernoncolytics.com
Location: Westlake, OH
Track: Healthcare & Life Sciences

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