The team that triumphed at the $100K Student Technology Venture Competition presented by the UTSA Center for Innovation and Technology Entrepreneurship developed a prototype sleep apnea device and wrote a business plan to market the technology.
The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) team, Mediflow, was comprised of seven undergraduates. The Mediflow team developed a commercially viable business plan for a CPAP device that is smaller and more mobile, and aims to be more comfortable than other CPAP devices currently on the market, according to a release. It integrates the blower into the facial mask itself and the power supply attaches to the body, which eliminates the need for a hose and anchored power supply.
Mediflow includes undergraduate engineering majors Joseph Barrios, Eluid Gutierrez, Aaron Mosqueda, and Maxim Perkins and undergraduate business majors Nancy Perdicho, Spencer Reynolds, and Kaleigh Simms. The Mediflow team won $2,000 cash and several in-kind business resources.
“Mentoring this group was a fantastic experience,” said San Antonio medical device consultant Mark Standeford, who served as Mediflow’s business mentor for the competition. “They identified a good opportunity, structured a good business plan around that opportunity, and even if they hadn’t won first place, they would have a winning commercial product.”
During the competition, local academic, business, and entrepreneurial experts judged the teams on their technology, business plan, and presentation. This year’s judges included Patrick R. Condon and Dirk Elmendorf, co-founders of Rackspace; Gary Frashier, president of Management Associates; Randall Goldsmith, investor in residence for the Texas Technology Development Center; Lorenzo Gomez III, executive director of the 80/20 Foundation; Teryn Grater of ATKG CPAs LLP; George E. Karutz Sr of Karutz Capital and Texas Research & Technology Foundation (TRTF); Norman L. Jacobson, owner of iMageDent Management and Development Services; and Peter Savas, CEO of StemBioSys Inc.
Established in 2007 and held semi-annually, the $100K Student Technology Venture Competition offers UTSA’s undergraduate senior business and engineering students the opportunity to build a technology, patent it, create a business, and launch it in a rigorous incubator program. The top three teams have access to a prize pool of more than $100,000 in funding and in-kind services to launch their new companies.
The founding sponsor of the competition is the Texas Research Technology Foundation. New and continuing sponsors include Cox|Smith, Rackspace, and the San Antonio Technology Center, and it is supported by the following UTSA entities: College of Business, College of Engineering, and Office of the Vice President for Research.
