ATLANTA (AP) - The Atlantic Coast Conference is known for its competition in athletics, but some of the brightest minds from all 15 conference schools met this week for a different kind of showdown.
Georgia Tech played host to the ACC InVenture competition this week in Atlanta. The event highlighted undergraduate entrepreneurs from each school, whose ideas for innovations are competing for $30,000 in cash prizes.
Dave Brown, coordinator of the ACC Academic Collaborative and Consortium, said the presidents of all the conference’s schools believe that while the ACC is serious about sports, but it’s mainly about academics.
“This is a way to highlight those academic contributions,” he said.
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Georgia Tech engineering duo Tyler Sisk, 20, and Zachary Brown, 21, represented their university at the competition, and were named in the group of five finalists vying for the top prize.
The pair pitched their idea, which uses Heads Up Display (HUD) technology to aid firefighters and their supervisors. FireHUD is a real time monitoring system that displays biometric and environmental information on a small screen inside firefighters’ helmets. The data is also streamed to a software program that can be monitored from a computer.
“The number one killer of firefighters is cardiac arrest, whereas a lot of people think it is caused by fire, so we are trying to prevent that,” Sisk said.
The group did a field test of their product in south Georgia, where it was tested inside a burning building.
“A lot of people at the field tests were interested, and we talked to a lot of fire stations around Atlanta,” Sisk said. “We are also working out a possible licensing deal with the manufacturers.”
SIZING UP THE COMPETITION
The finalists for the grand prize included the teams from Boston College, Duke University, Georgia Tech, the University of North Carolina and the University of Virginia.
Kevin Eisenfrats, a 22-year-old biomedical engineering student from the University of Virginia, is part of Contraline, a group looking to change the male contraceptive market.
Contraline’s goal is to market a non-surgical male contraceptive - and injection that would offer men a middle-ground alternative when it comes to birth control.
“If you are a guy out there, unfortunately there are only two options, a vasectomy or condom,” Eisenfrats said. “It’s as quick and simple as a flu shot.”
Mechanical engineering students Gabrielle Levac, 24, and Ivonna Dumanyan, 21, are both former athletes at Duke, and developed a wearable sensor that monitors imperfections in biomechanics. The data gathered can then be used to identify injury risks for athletes at any time.
“It can do this by focusing on things like the way your hips are positioned, or other strength performances in a rehab environment,” Levac said. “Basically, this can help the raise the weakest link for athletes.”
Boston College made it to the finals for its real-time music application, while students from UNC made the cut with their charity-based invitation and gift purchasing platform.
The teams will be judged on entrepreneurship, business model, quality of the idea, and the probability of becoming a successful business.
First-place will be awarded $15,000 and the second place will get $10,000.
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