Santa Cruz Launchpad Kudos & Winners
Photos by Sullivan Gaudreault More photos at: Launchpad 2022 photos
The Santa Cruz Launchpad event at the Cowell Ranch Hay Barn at UCSC featured 19 student teams, 25 company exhibitors, and nearly 500 attendees in total. The day kicked off with a fast-paced pitch competition featuring 5-minute presentations from each of the teams. The top teams in the CIED pitch competition were recognized during the event and are listed below.
Following the pitch contest, the event also included a hiring fair with more than two dozen local employers looking to hire graduating Slugs and community members. UCSC’s Chancellor, Cynthia Larive, the Assistant Vice Chancellor for Innovation and Business Engagement, Ryan Sharp, and the Faculty Director of the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurial Development, Manel Camps, spoke highlighting UCSC’s accomplishments in the area of innovation.
Career seekers had over 400 positions to pick from at companies in sectors like healthcare, sustainability, education, technology, and transportation. All participating teams were given access to “Perks Package” with access to over a million dollars worth of credits and services coordinated by Santa Cruz Works and top teams received a prizes totalling $40,000.
This event was produced and facilitated by staff at the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurial Development and the Campus’ Innovation and Business Engagement Hub in partnership with Santa Cruz Works with additional sponsorship from Cabrillo College.
Kudos for a Great Event
“I enjoyed having the chance to speak with all these companies in person. This is an invaluable opportunity!” Oliver Fuchs / UCSC Student
“UCSC is centric to emerging ideas and the level of thought presented in the finalists is amazing. And the breadth of economic reach of the companies there- from Joby to Driscoll. I love this vibrancy.” Gordon Simmons / Job Seeker
“We were able to connect with a lot of students. We were approached by other company representatives and even parents who were interested in what we do, so it was a great opportunity for us to be there sharing about our work.” Sonja Pineda / Recruiter for Digital NEST
“We enjoyed the UCSC Hay Barn space and atmosphere. We had a ton of attendees and young professional stop by our booth. One of the best hiring events we've participated in.” Jory Miranda / Recruiter for Bay Federal Credit Union
“We enjoyed the structure of students having the freedom to browse and have meaningful conversations around their goals for a career.” Marisa Bush / Recruiter at PayStand
Pitch Competition
Congratulations to the 19 student-led teams who participated in the 5th Annual Santa Cruz Launchpad Pitch Competition and Job Fair held last Wednesday, June 1st at the UCSC Hay Barn. Our panel of UCSC alumni and community judges selected the following winners:
1st Place: PinPoint
The Pinpoint team is pictured with UCSC Chancellor, Cynthia Larive, and a $10,000 prize check. From left to right: Eliot Wachtel, Rohan Tuli, Cynthia Larive, Jonathan Morris.
What is PinPoint? We aim to create an AVL system for transit agencies so that their buses show up on Google Maps, Apple Maps, etc. We have been working on this for around six months, and we aim to use this prize money to do further prototyping over the summer.
What are the next steps for your team? Our first goal is to install these in the UC Santa Cruz loop busses so that the students can see where the busses are and commute faster across campus. Our favorite part of the event was the support we got from one of the mentors, Andrea Carafa, he helped us polish our presentation and convey our message.
Prize: $10,000
Team: Tuli Rohan, Jonathan Morris, Ishan, Eliot Wachtel, Aron Brunkhurst. Pinpoint is part of Slugbotics robotics team at UCSC.
2nd Place: Yektasonics
Yektasonics 4 channel phased array
What is Yektasonics? Yektasonics has an innovative ultrasound solution for both medical and nonmedical applications; this technology reduces the cost by 10-20x per channel, with unprecedented performance capabilities. The technology is for Focused Ultrasound or "curing with sounds" medical devices, which treats over 150 medical conditions non-invasively (this number is a 4x increase in the past 4 years). We have traction from both the medical and nonmedical industry for our technology. We have achieved our single channel power module and our core building block of our many channel count phased array.
What are your next steps? Our immediate next step is to ship our devices to potential customers, while improving our technology per market needs. We are a talented team of scientists and engineers in California, Arizona, Georgia, and Mariland. If you are interested in investing in Yektasonics, please reach out to the CEO, Navid Gougol, at gougol@yektasonics.com.
Prize: $8,000
Team: Navid Gougol
3rd Place: Forward
Kamil Kisielewicz, Shivansh Rustagi
What is Forward? Forward uses blockchain technology to better manage currency risk, and enable more capital to flow into emerging markets (Brazil, India, Sub Saharan Africa). Currently, there is a ton of demand for loans in emerging markets, but these local banks don’t have enough liquidity to finance them. So, they take loans from US lenders, but that exposes them to fluctuations between their local currency and the dollar. Current hedging products are either too expensive or only willing to work with clients with at least $100MM to hedge. Forward uses Stablecoins and their relative money markets to offer better pricing and more flexibility. We started this project at a hackathon in UC Berkeley a little over two months ago. The organizer informed us of a problem that one of the biggest crypto lenders, Goldfinch, had been facing: currency risk. We built a prototype and placed 1st. We continued working on it due to real customer interest, and an interest in helping real people access financial infrastructure
What are your next steps? We plan to audit our beta MVP, then publicly launch.
Prize: $6,000
Team: Kamil Kisielewicz, Shivansh Rustagi
4th Place: BioGenesis
BioGenesis team Edward (left) and Martin (right) pictured holding their prize check.
What is BioGenesis? BioGenesis takes in phenotypic (symptoms/wearables information) and genotypic information (genetic output) on the front end, and on the backend aggregates electronic medical records (EMRs) across the US. This allows for our machine learning algorithm to make conclusions about inputted patient scenarios using past physician decision making recorded in EMR data to output diagnostic and prognostic (treatment plan) information to the user (patient).
What are your next steps? Next steps for our team are mainly building out the product and ML algorithm, for which we will be hiring some bioinformatics engineering talent (please email me at edward@biogenesistech.com or apply on our website https://www.biogenesistech.com/), filing patents/securing intellectual property, and pursuing non-dilutive funding such as the CIED Pitch competition. We truly enjoyed [Santa Cruz Launchpad] and would like to thank everyone who was involved in orchestrating/executing it!
Prize: $4,000
Team: Edward Fisher, Martin Michalko
5th Place: Masiso
Masiso founders: Adrian and Jonathan Muniz-Murguia
What is Masiso?: Masiso provides a fully automated weight training solution. We use the latest in computer vision technology to analyze your workouts. Our mission is to help everyone reach their max potential. In late June 2022 we will officially launch masiso on Google Play and the App Store. Masisio will provide analysis for squats and deadlifts but we hope to one day expand in other areas of the fitness industry.
What’s next for Masiso? We’re seeking funding to add more features like injury detection algorithms and more! SC Launchpad 2022 was a great experience for us. It was a great place to network and see what other students at UCSC are working on.
Team: Adrian Muniz-Murguia, Jonathan Muniz-Murguia
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