Sample Idea Summaries

To help you write your own idea summaries for the Duke Start-Up Challenge, here are some examples from past competitors.

No video is needed for Round 1

View the Round 2 Teams from Spring 2012

Clean Energy Track

Durham SciNergy - Durham SciNergy is a start-up nonprofit focused on stabilizing distressed properties in Durham’s transitional neighborhoods. By renovating green, we are helping to revitalize neighborhoods, and make sustainable living options available.
SafeTNA - We build the tools for trust.

Healthcare & Life Sciences Track

CereNovo - Live ~ Anew
CranioVation - Innovative Solutions in Neurosurgery
Nanoly - Using a Nano-Sized Solution to Solve a Macro-Sized Problem: enabling cheap, convenient, and safe delivery of vaccines to anywhere in the world.
ONCOSTEM - Targeting Stem Cells to Cure Cancer
SimplyAir - SimplyAir is a life saving portable carbon dioxide detector used in emergency rooms, intensive care units, and first responder situations to ensure proper endotracheal tube placement during intubation and adequate performance of CPR.

IT, Internet & Media Track

Alma Matters - Alma Matters is an integrated crowdfunding social network that brings together creative university students and established Alumni for the purpose of igniting innovative research and development, free of institutional bureaucracy.
Mobile Foods - Facilitating communication between food trucks and their clientele.
radius - radius is a revolutionary tool that aims to bridge the disconnect between the physical and digital worlds.
Starfish - Use intelligent Starfish, keep Hadoop professionals away.

Other Products & Services Track

Edge Athletics - Resistance Training Apparel provides significant resistance to athletes during their sport-specific training. This added resistance during training will help to build greater strength, speed, and endurance, resulting in better game-time performance.
Green Lab Solutions - Green Lab Solutions offers innovative, high-quality products to generate cost-beneﬁts for customers by reducing plastic consumable waste in the laboratory environment.
Motaavi, LLC - We are a crowdfunding platform and integrated exchange where companies can issue up to $1M in equity from any investor regardless of accredited status.
NeuroSpire - The future of marketing begins with neuro. NeuroSpire integrates a platform for conducting neuromarketing studies within traditional market research firms.
ShelfRelief - Buy and sell books with students around you

Social Enterprises Track

FreeLunch - FreeLunch seeks to overcome obstacles to saving money using lessons from behavioral economics. We will offer rewards to users for each retirement dollar saved while providing personal finance education.
Pajebal - Pajebal creates mutually beneficial business-to-business connections between U.S. firms and developing-world small businesses via relationship-based lending, mentorship, and high-bandwidth web communication.
Watu Mobile - Our website and mobile applications will empower NGOs and corporations to survey and message populations on their mobile phones. For organizations working in emerging markets, this transforms how they connect with their employees and customers.
WAVA, LLC - WAVA, LLC provides West African agricultural entrepreneurs with the capital, technology and coaching to create profitable enterprises that nourish, employ and empower local communities.
Zamsolar - Sustainable solutions to energy poverty.

Special Interest Tracks from Spring 2012

Special interest tracks give teams additional opportunities to advance. Students can compete in them in addition to the functional tracks, as an additional "shot on goal".

Undergraduate-led Startups Track

Must be led and pitched by undergraduate Duke students

AMFLASK Solutions - Revolutionizing the quality of care for stress urinary incontinence.
Nanoly - Using a Nano-Sized Solution to Solve a Macro-Sized Problem: enabling cheap, convenient, and safe delivery of vaccines to anywhere in the world.
NeuroSpire - The future of marketing begins with neuro. NeuroSpire integrates a platform for conducting neuromarketing studies within traditional market research firms.
ShelfRelief - Buy and sell books with students around you
WAVA, LLC - WAVA, LLC provides West African agricultural entrepreneurs with the capital, technology and coaching to create profitable enterprises that nourish, employ and empower local communities.

Women-led Startups Track

Must be led and pitched by female Duke students

Mati Tea - An all-natural environmentally conscious tea beverage that takes drinking beyond the drink; Plant our packaging for a flowering surrounding.
Nanoly - Using a Nano-Sized Solution to Solve a Macro-Sized Problem: enabling cheap, convenient, and safe delivery of vaccines to anywhere in the world.
ONCOSTEM - Targeting Stem Cells to Cure Cancer
One Nightstand - Quick, Easy and Hassle-Free, Your furniture means a lot to me!
SafeTNA - We build the tools for trust.

Pilot Track

China-focused Startups

Teams must be focused on the Chinese market. Teams can be comprised of Chinese and non-Chinese students. The Round 2 video may also be voiced over in mandarin. Judges for this track have self-identified as having experience in Chinese markets

FishCycle - Reducing fish waste and making use of it
Quality Expert - We are going to build an information platform of collecting and disseminating the information of quality standards of products to consumers. We are planning to reach the users through mobile app.
Wrainbo Home Care - Provide certified professionals to serve high-end elderly home care market in China's tier 1 cities

-----

Executive Summaries from Spring 2010 Semi-Finalist Teams*

Please note: In Spring 2012, the format for Round 1 has been changed to be an Idea Summary with a 10 page limit, and based on a template. The samples below may still be helpful, but follow the older 2 page limit.

Click the link to download the two-page summary. This is a partial list, provided with their permission.

25th Hour Media - 25th Hour Media connects online content providers to their customers through high-quality, human-narrated streaming audio delivered on internet-enabled mobile devices.
BioWires - Biowires has created innovative solutions to neurological monitoring
curvit - curvit fills the gap between online resumes and manually typed and formatted resumes by allowing the user to focus on the content, while curvit manages both online and hardcopy formatting.
Ecoviator - Ecoviator provides online users the opportunity to search for, compare, and book Ecotoursim adventures.
Green Wave Sciences - Green Wave Sciences seeks to develop solutions to crop pest problems through the use of electromagnetic radiation.
ImmunoDispense Pro - The ImmunoDispense Pro is an in-home device which safely and accurately dispenses powders for oral immunotherapy to treat food allergies.
Kosh - Kosh is an online knowledge repository that will aggregate and create engaging educational content in all formats. This virtual library will make educational media accessible at a nominal price and in regional Indian languages, to rural India.
Micropower - Imagine running a laptop for 24 hours without plugging into a wall. Micropower is developing an ethanol fueled microengine to increase portability for consumer electronics and government robots.
Nutty Tutoring - Nutty Tutoring is a non-profit online-software provider that connects tutoring organizations and students to bridge the gap between quality tutoring and accessibility.
The Progress & Purity Project - The Progress & Purity Project aims to improve quality of life in northern Afghanistan by empowering women to start businesses, help fellow Afghans through microfinance and handicraft fair trade, and decrease disease through chlorine purification.
PurAxis - PurAxis makes it possible to produce many drugs with high optical purity, potentially reducing side effects, increasing efficacy and providing patients a higher quality of life.
PROSPERA - PROSPERA is a social venture that develops microenterprises through cost-effective supplies, marketing and distribution.
ScanUp - ScanUp raises the standard of medical imaging.