The Competition
On April 5 & 6, nearly 40 student entrepreneurs (14 teams) from across the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) traveled to Georgia Tech to participate in the 3rd annual ACC InVenture Prize for $30,000 in cash prizes. It's no great surprise that the contest was inspired by Georgia Tech’s own InVenture Prize.
On the first day of the competition student inventors pitched their startups to a panel of judges and spend some of their down-time touring student maker spaces on Georgia Tech’s campus. They also had a chance to meet with Atlanta entrepreneurs and venture capitalists.
“Now in its 10th year of competition, the InVenture Prize at Georgia Tech continues to promote the creativity and entrepreneurial interests of our students,” said Rafael L. Bras, Georgia Tech’s provost and executive vice president for Academic Affairs and the K. Harrison Brown Family Chair. “We are proud to once again play host to the ACC InVenture Prize competition and foster that same energy among student competitors at all 15 of our respective institutions.”
Kolby Hanley won Tech’s InVenture Prize last month and will represented the Institute in the ACC competition. Hanley, a materials science and engineering major, invented a first of-its-kind aiming device for competitive archery. The lightweight scope with integrated light, called StarLight, is the latest product developed by his company, UltraView. He runs the company from his dorm room and ships his products from the post office on campus.
After the initial pitches were completed, five teams were chosen to advance to the finale on Friday, April 6th at Tech’s Ferst Center for the Arts. The teams were from: North Carolina State University, University of Pittsburgh, University of Virginia, Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech. (Click HERE for a more in-depth look at the teams and their inventions). Teams were judged in four areas: entrepreneurship, business model, quality of the idea, and the probability of becoming a successful business.
The Winners
First place: Team InMEDBio from University of Virginia won $15,000. This team designed Phoenix-Aid, a five-layer wound dressing that combines the basic elements of chronic wound care into a single cost-effective product that is ideal for treating patients in emerging markets.
Second place: Team Four Growers from University of Pittsburgh won $10,000. This team is using robots and machine learning to autonomously harvest greenhouse crops. This allows farmers to expand their operations, reduce production costs and increase yields.
People’s Choice: Team InMEDBio from University of Virginia won $5,000.
The competition was streamed worldwide online and it was also televised on Georgia Public Broadcasting and other PBS affiliates around the country. (If you were unable to watch the competition live, the finale can be watched HERE.)
Next year the ACC InVenture Prize will be hosted by NC State. Representatives from the school will visit campus this summer for a crash-course in running and hosting the competition.
The ACC InVenture Prize is sponsored by the ACC Academic Consortium, which supports academic initiatives among member universities.