RIT News - Innovation Pipeline

Innovation News

RIT in the News

Related Links

Welcome to “Innovation Pipeline,” an online newsletter updated regularly, highlighting innovation and entrepreneurial activity by RIT students, faculty and staff–as well as companies of RIT’s Venture Creations. If you have a story idea for “Innovation Pipeline,” please submit it to Greg Livadas at Greg.Livadas@rit.edu.

Luggage GPS tops Shark Tank competition

The latest RIT Shark Tank competition was held March 6 in the Albert J. Simone Center for Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship with six finalists who were selected from a field of 50.

First place: Angela Corrado, Steven Asselanis, Jared Rube and Alex Dupont for Turas, a business concept that would help reunite owners with their missing luggage via a GPS unit built into the suitcase. (pictured)

Second place: Appture, an application that allows the display of a mobile device onto other nearby devices even from different manufacturers. Students are Auston LeRoy and Evan Starkman.

Third place: Mahesh Galgalikar, an electrical engineering student from India, wants to create a basic device to identify heart defects by comparing the patterns of heartbeats. He said this would be useful in remote areas of the world where there is no access to hospitals or MRI machines.

Fourth place: Samuel Nelson, a software engineering student, for his concept on anti-piracy software that would detect copyrighted content on other websites.

Fifth place: Academic Based Career Development, a service that connects consumers to employers and academic institutions by comparing skills to the skills needed for specific jobs. Students are Dmitry Liapitch and Sourabh Jain.

Sixth place: Canalyzer, a recycling bin that will add up the value of the cans or other recyclables that are put inside it. Students are Tegan Spinner and Ben Dobiz.

“The judges were impressed with all six presentations,” said Richard DeMartino, director of the Simone Center.

RIT’s Shark Tank competition was hosted by the E. Philip Saunders College of Business.

Three RIT teams going to state finals

Three teams with innovative business ideas will represent Rochester Institute of Technology in the New York State Business Competition finals, to be held at the State University of New York at Albany on April 26.

They were among 23 teams participating in the Finger Lakes Regional Semi-Finalist Presentation Round held at RIT. Teams from the University of Rochester and Hobart and William Smith Colleges also advanced to the finals, where $500,000 in prizes will be awarded to the winning teams.

The RIT teams advancing to the finals are:

Clean Life Corps, a new concept for a sanitary waste management system to be used in Haiti: Students Alyssa Smith, Brandy Madera, Trevor Thunell and Andrew Sapienza, an international studies major at St. John Fisher College.

Nebula Sports, preventing and increasing awareness about concussion injuries in sports: Students Ben Sima, Patrick Streeter, Andres Ulloa and Kayla Wheeler.

Skyvo, applications for iPads for educational use: Students Gregory Sapienza and John Robinson (pictured).

The New York Business Plan Competition is one of the largest business competitions in the nation. More than 50 colleges and universities with more than 300 teams are expected to participate statewide. Last year’s grand prize winner was Strong Arm Technologies from RIT.

Design thinking

Students recently used the Albert J. Simone Center for Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship to show off their projects in Sandra Turner’s Design Thinking class in the E. Philip Saunders College of Business.

“Design thinking is a process that aids collaboration among designers, technologists and business professionals,” Turner says. “The process provides a structured creative process for discovering and developing products and services for profit and not-profit applications.”

Among the concepts:

Custodial cart redesign: Custodians at RIT were consulted about the challenges they faced on the job. A redesigned cart would make gloves and cleaning supplies readily available and could also provide a sorting area for trash and recyclables.

E-waste: Students studied battery recycling and environmental contamination. A small desktop bin designed in the shape of a battery would collect used batteries from radios, games, appliances and hearing aids. Some would be recycled and others would be disposed of properly.

Drinking water: Creating drinking water stations around campus while changing behaviors and providing alternatives to sugary drinks.

Single stream recycling: Redesigning recycling bins to make them more user-friendly by using a color-coded system with graphics.

RIT’s entrepreneurship in the news

Start Right Up in Rochester

Rochester, home to Rochester Institute of Technology, is the place to be when it comes to technological innovation, entrepreneurship, and business development.

By Jodi Ackerman Frank

Ed McCarthy was a Marine Corps officer when he received an unusual request from researchers at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). The researchers were testing a device they built to predict when mechanical breakdowns would occur in vehicles. Did the Marines have a combat truck they could borrow?

“That’s when I started interacting with RIT and began thinking, ‘Wow, this is a really interesting project,’” McCarthy said.

For the complete story, go to http://www.nyserda.ny.gov/Features/Start-Right-Up-in-Rochester.aspx?sc_database=web.

view full archive »