Engineering students won three of the seven Gillespie Business Plan Competition awards
Each year, the university’s Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship runs the Gillespie Business Plan Competition to assist students in promoting concepts in entrepreneurship.
Computer science and biomedical engineering student teams won top prizes in 2023!
Using AI to evaluate and clarify rental leases
2023 computer science graduates Brannan Kovachev and Matthews Hyre created LeaseSavvy, a platform that significantly simplifies understanding lease agreements. Their product helps leases become much more accessible to potential renters.
LeaseSavvy began as a class project in a new course – Entrepreneurship in Computing – taught by instructor Arvinder Singh.
Innovations in AI, distributed computation, Web3 technologies and an array of exciting new innovations are changing the jobs landscape in front of our eyes.
Instead of watching the world change from the sidelines, we are training our students the skills that breed innovation and entrepreneurship.
– Arvinder Singh, Instructor, Computer Science
The team won the Lynn and Ron Samuels Student Entrepreneur Award – a $5,000 prize for exemplifying entrepreneurial spirit through a venture driven by innovation in a product, process or service.
Making dialysis smooth and simple
Four 2023 biomedical engineering students – Emily Kerivan, McKenna Pruitt, Kade Frisby and Jordan Kocsis – set up Navigator Medical LLC.
The team created a device to aid in the placement of the large needles used during dialysis treatment. It not only makes needle placement easier for clinicians, but it also decreases the trauma to the patient.
They won the W. Thomas Colbert-Community Bank Innovation Award – a $5,000 prize awarded to the team using technology to drive innovation in a product, process or service.
Navigator Medical LLC is also competing in a Mississippi-based business competition called CoBuilders to further develop the company. They will continue working on their project using lab space at university’s Center for Diagnostics, Design, Devices and Biomechanics.
Making life easier with 3-D printing
Kylie Wright and Jenna Smith, who are also recent biomedical engineering graduates, came up a practical and personal idea for the competition. They designed and 3-D printed a mechanism that allows their friend Nikki Jonah – who is a below knee amputee – to easily stand in the shower.
The two won the Edward G. Francis, Sr. Entrepreneur Award – a $2,500 prize for demonstrating entrepreneurial spirit through a venture driven by innovation in a product, process or service with knowledge of upcoming financial needs through financial analysis.
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