Meet the 41 BU Start-ups Who Will Compete in the New Venture Competition
March 1, 2021–On March 4th and 9th, 41 BU-led start-ups will share short pitches during the first round of the 21st Annual New Venture Competition.
The three-round competition includes a General Ideas Track and Social Impact Track and ultimately awards over $64,000 in cash prizes to start-ups led by current students and class of 2020 alumni.
The BU community and public are invited to Round 1 Pitch Nights on Zoom to hear from the 41 teams listed below, find out which teams move on to Round 2, and vote for an Audience Favorite team in each track to advance. General Track teams will pitch on Thursday, March 4 and Social Impact Track teams will pitch on Tuesday, March 9.
General Track:
- A-OK is an AI-driven healthcare platform that guides patients through surgery, directly increasing post-surgical outcomes for patients, and clinical efficiency for physicians. Team lead: Aryan Wadhwa (CAS’24, MED’27)
- Acre is a real estate investment platform that allows users to purchase fractional ownership of income-generating properties. Using blockchain technology and smart contracts, the platform facilitates and ensures security for all investments, loans, and dividend payouts. Team lead: Brandon Tzou (Questrom’23)
- Airflow Seating System Technologies’ goal is to develop and create a cushioning system that utilizes sensing technology to guide pressure movement, eliminating the need for caretaker intervention in pressure injury prevention for people with compromised mobility. Embedded sensing capabilities will also provide healthcare professionals with metrics that allow for a more proactive and comprehensive diagnostics process, changing the way patients are monitored. Team lead: Cooper Shifrin (ENG’22)
- Blue Sparrow Onboarding Solution for Quality Therapy (OSQT) aims to provide virtual onboarding training on quality care for allied health providers (i.e., occupational therapy, physical therapy, speech therapy). Quality care ensures that providers provide the highest quality care in the most efficient way possible, including quality documentation to support medical necessity, family-centered care, and functional outcomes. Team lead: Tara Warwick (SAR’21)
- Braingo develops toys, games, and other educational tools to help children learn essential life skills and stimulate their intelligence while having fun. Team lead: Giuseppe Lisciani (Questrom’21)
- BumpCall is a mobile app that connects friends through spontaneous, timed video calls that digitally recreates the experience of bumping into a friend on the street. Through a unique algorithm, the app pairs puts users in touch with their friends to create an exciting and serendipitous digital interaction. Team lead: Michael D’Arrigo (CFA’22, Questrom’22)
- BuzzButton brings low-cost, portable electricity generation to people who are permanently or temporarily off-grid, so everyone can freely use consumer electronics. Team lead: Debarshi Basak (ENG’22)
- CoStudy is the next generation of peer evaluations that provide customizable, research-based insights for professors in higher education. Team lead: Brock Nelson (ENG’22)
- envelope.network is a user-first ad network that strives for making the digital advertising ecosystem right for everyone.Team lead: Islam Faisal (GRS’24)
- Go Off! is the first and only emerging social platform that hosts small live-chat discussions that are moderated to encourage meaningful debate and discussions around current events and news that is happening now. Team lead: Glo Robinson (COM’22)
- INTA+ Tutoring is an online tutoring platform connecting struggling students with tutors that have taken and aced their exact courses and their very own university. Team lead: Ben Reydler (Questrom’22)
- LuthierZone is an online, world-wide community/marketplace where luthiers (people who handcraft wood instruments) and potential customers can connect to build that musician the wood instrument of their dreams. Team lead: Matthew Lillie (Questrom’21)
- Meechu-NACC is dedicated to making communication among college classmates easier, and “Meechu” is an app to service that mission. Team lead: Yaopu Wang (ENG’21)
- Mount uses its IOT smart lock and fleet management system to launch electric scooters at Airbnb and vacation rental properties. Team lead: Rishab Nayak (GRS’21)
- Phonetic Beats teaches phonetic literacy to small children using trap/music music. Team lead: Faith Rogers (CFA’22)
- ProjectH is a friend to help you find the perfect home away from home. Team lead: Rachana Krishna (Questrom’22)
- Safer & Easier Needle-less Dialysis Access is developing a novel needle-less venous access device that guarantees safer and easier dialysis experience, without the complications associated with the current care standard. Team lead: Oluwagbebemi Oyeniyi (ENG’20)
- Safety LED Vest for Cyclists and other small wheel transport is a safety vest which displays turn signals and alert signals on the back via remote control. These functions will help improve the cyclists visibility and communication with pedestrians and cars. Team lead: Quang Trung (Dani) Le (Questrom’22)
- Sky International Music Education provides online music lessons from teachers around the world and students in China. Team lead: Zhuqing Zhang (CFA’22)
- Snapwork is a matchmaking app designed to allow college students search and apply for jobs, internships, and side jobs instantly–and to create a smoother and more accessible experience for small businesses to seek potential employees during the Covid-19 period. Team lead: Jiaqei Wu (CAS’22)
- SONOflammation is a bioelectronics startup aimed at preventing and treating patients chronic or acute kidney rejection. Its device is a closed-loop system that integrates biomarker monitoring with an ultrasound stimulator to evoke anti-inflammatory effects. Team lead: Shen Ning (MED’23)
Social Impact Track:
- Agriworks is a collection of open-source design tools to help policy researchers create decentralized agriculture policy in India. It aims to shift the current paradigm of the slow centralized policy-making process to a more tailored rapid local policymaking paradigm driven by data generated by students, startups, non-profits, and farmer cooperatives. Team lead: Dakota Clark-Singh (CAS’21)
- Athlete Future Foundation aims to provide American athletes with the skills and resources necessary to ensure their employment in a fulfilling profession following retirement. Team lead: Bente Backer (CAS’22)
- Breaking Barriers is a free mentorship program to support international students applying to undergraduate and graduate programs in the United States that aims to bring students together, share their stories, give advice and keep breaking barriers. Team lead: Raissa Zuim Dantas de Souza (MED’21)
- BreastFeeding Culture’s mission is to promote and support evidence-based nutritional practices on a global scale to improve health outcomes for infants and children. It strives to take into account cultural differences and norms to provide socially and culturally appropriate education surrounding best feeding practices. Team lead: Melissa Ghulam-Smith (MED’21)
- PatientRights aims to use machine learning and natural language processing to radically simplify how patients fight for their rights. Team lead: Daria Anshakova (MET’22)
- Dcobys aims to bring the best internationalization virtual mobility experience globally and to commit to an increasingly sustainable and lasting world. Team lead: Nelson Henriquez (MET’21)
- Dipleo is a hiring platform for minorities who have a higher risk of not finding a job in Latin America. Team lead: Enrique de Lima (CAS’21)
- Every Hand is a Hero is a nonprofit organization that raises awareness and combats sex trafficking by focusing on the big picture aspects of sex trafficking networks. Team leads: Erin Sheehan (SSW’20) & Madeleine Pouw (SPH’20)
- Food for You aims to create a non-profit that would allow students to attend a “charity grocery store” where they can pick up basic food necessities in order to create healthy meals. Team lead: Fabiana Triana (MET’23)
- Hand and Paw aims to be a non-profit organization that provides a shelter that welcomes both homeless people and homeless dogs. Team lead: Janice Noh (ENG’21)
- Hood Renovationz is a team of three seeking to improve housing needs for lifelong renters in inhabitable places. Team lead: Daisy Figueroa (LAW’21)
- Migration Tales is a multimedia platform that amplifies migrant voices by leveraging the power of storytelling. By featuring authentic migrant narratives and publishing educational articles, it conveys values of diversity, inclusivity, and empathy. Team lead: Yiran Yu (CAS’23, Pardee’23)
- Raiz Cuidado a Granel is the first customer centered refill store of natural beauty, personal care, and cleaning products in Medellin. Team lead: Guillermo Gallego (Questrom’22)
- RefEd is a mobile, interactive app designed specifically for refugee students without consistent access to education. Team lead: Albert Jimenez (Wheelock’21)
- SpecGraphixEDU offers in-person and online creativity-based classes for kids ages 5 to 12. It aims to end institutionalized oppression of creativity in schools and give kids the platform to be creative and explore niche subjects absent in schools. Team lead: Eric Hansen (COM’21)
- Stories of Survival is a multimedia platform that calls us to consider the sacred stories of gender and sexually diverse survivors as they exist outside of religious institutions. Team lead: Jeremy Shulz (STH’21)
- The Stateless Collective trains students for studying, working, researching, and volunteering abroad through online modules and an ethically oriented community platform. Team lead: Hailey Hart-Thompson (CAS’21, COM’21)
- The Sweaty Penguin is a comedy environmental podcast aiming to make environmental issues less politicized and more accessible and fun. Team lead: Ethan Brown (CAS’21, COM’21)
- Turn In. Reach Out. Well Being and Communal Care Totes are available in English and Spanish, and contain resources for an entire family to learn and practice meditation, community building, expressive arts, and emotional intelligence. Team lead: Kimberly Bress (STH’21)
- Viinko is making time management and organization education accessible for all students. Viinko integrates into a school’s curriculum, making the essential life skills or time management and organization a part of every student’s education. Team lead: Victoria Kinnealey (Questrom’21)
RSVP for the Round 1 Pitch Nights on March 4 & 9
