If you want to be an entrepreneur, ASU is probably one of the best places you could be right now. A few years back, ASU president Michael Crow started an initiative to help make all of ASU’s colleges more entrepreneurial. Every college at ASU started offering business classes, so students wanting to start their own businesses would have the tools and skills necessary to do so after graduating.
One of those initiatives is the Edson Student Entrepreneur program. Each year, the Edson program provides $200,000 in grants (money that doesn’t have to be paid back) in $10,000 increments to 20 startups. Even more important than the money, the Edson program also provides working space at SkySong as well as coaching and training through numerous mentors.
This year, more than 300 startups applied for the Edson funds and today, the 20 winners were announced:
AlphaStripe (web)
AlphaStripe is a global, online networking platform for military service members, military families, civilians, and humanitarian organizations to share war-time and conflict zone stories in video, photo, audio, and journal formats. Open to military personnel and civilians the world over, AlphaStripe has developed a detailed database of military branches and service units, enhancing the social connections made when their members create profiles and upload content. AlphaStripe gives their members an opportunity to save history, record memories and make connections through their unique combination of popular social media outlets.
Website: www.alphastripe.com
BlockLight (mobile)
BlockLight aims to become the leading software provider in educational and professional performing arts by improving current methods of preparation and practice. Its first product, Stage Minion, is an iPad application for performers, directors, choreographers, and stage managers that will revolutionize the way that show plans are created, documented, and shared.
Website: Coming Soon
Custom Aeroponics™ (clean tech)
Custom Aeroponics manufactures and sells aeroponic components to urban agriculture growers, from restaurants to individuals, who want to reduce waste water, fertilizers, and increase food quality while minimizing growth time. Unlike AgriHouse or Aerofarms, we use FDA and USDA approved recyclable materials, bacteria and bio-film resistant components, and increase plant density through our unique design, giving our users a more reliable, efficient, and eco-friendly system.
Website: www.soillesssolutions.info
FlashFood (mobile)
FlashFood is a smartphone application and website designed to reduce food waste and feed the hungry. When the manager of a business has leftover food at the end of the night, she can create a post on our network which will notify a group of volunteer drivers to pick up the donation and deliver it to a local community center, such as a school or church. Meanwhile, qualifying subscribers to the network will receive a text alert of when and where they can pick up the donated meals.
Website: Coming Soon
G3Box (sustainable living)
G3Box sells medical clinics made out of converted steel shipping containers to nonprofits and NGOs that work in healthcare development and disaster response who want on-demand, fully-functional medical space for their needs. Unlike container conversion companies and nonprofits that convert containers to clinics, we capture a healthcare market, do not rely on a volunteer and fundraising model, and have a scalable and standardized manufacturing plan.
Website: www.g3box.org
Innovative Healthcare Technology (health tech)
Innovative Healthcare Technology sells EZ PT, a virtual physical therapy program using Kinect technology, to therapists, physicians and patients who will benefit from a home therapy program that provides feedback and tracks patient compliance and performance accuracy. Unlike the status quo, EZ PT provides immediate and consistent feedback, resulting in a more effective physical therapy delivery program, with significant cost savings.
Website: Coming Soon
KVZ Sports LLC (retail)
KVZ is a fully integrated design and manufacturing company that provides apparel products, on demand, to action sports clients who are looking for unique ways to promote their destination or brand and lower their inventory costs. Unlike our competitors we manufacture most of our products here in the United States with much shorter lead times and the ability to deliver mid-season re-orders. Stocking inventory for them is no longer a “one-shot-deal” that needs to be finalized pre-season.
Website: www.kvzsports.com
Late Living (web)
Late Living provides video tours of assisted living facilities to senior citizens and their families who want the ability to search for assisted living care without leaving the comfort of their own home. Unlike the current approach and other online directories, Late Living is the first to offer full video walkthrough tours, room availability, Facebook integration, and direct facility contact wrapped into an easy to use website. Our approach saves time, lowers stress, and aids the facilities in locating new patients they would have never otherwise found.
Website: www.lateliving.com
Mercury Innovative™ (tech)
Mercury Innovative® creates unique language arts and analysis software for kids & their parents, educators, and researchers. Our Text in Motion (TIM) software makes reading and writing fun and interactive for children. Our other software, called Rhetoristics®, allows communications researchers to create and analyze language models of audiences and communities.
Website: www.mercuryinnovative.com
PhycoLogial (clean tech)
PhycoLogical produces omega-3 enriched algae and algae oil for people who want health hearts and healthy pets. Unlike omega-3 from fish-oil our omega-3 production is sustainable and mercury free and is produced from waste nutrients using natural sunlight to lower cost.
Website: Coming Soon
Pollination Providers (sustainable living)
Pollination Providers provides artificial pollination to growers who want more control over pollination and yields. Unlike bee pollination, our process does not rely on weather or healthy bee hives to create substantial agricultural yields.
Website: Coming Soon
Quester Galleries (web)
Quester Galleries is a downloadable photo slide show software that creates embeddable image galleries for use in digital news venues. This technology is designed by photojournalists for photojournalists. Quester Galleries provides a simple, clean and functional option for online news companies to display compelling photography, allowing the user to focus on an image – not a poorly designed gallery. Because the technology is integrated into each website’s html, the gallery also can improve search engine optimization and web traffic analytics.
Website: Coming Soon
SafeSIPP (sustainable living)
SafeSIPP is a more-than-profit venture simultaneously solving two problems facing rural communities in the developing world: transportation and purification of drinking water. SafeSIPP has designed a portable water purification system to sell to non-profit organizations and social enterprises that have established connections and relationships with rural communities in the developing world. Unlike others in the market, who only transport water, SafeSIPP adds value by both transporting and purifying large amounts contaminated water.
Website: www.safesipp.org
Seymour Enterprises (health tech)
Seymour Enterprises provides Ella’s Monitor, a revolutionary, low-cost device that will save infants from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Unlike existing inaccurate home sensors, Ella’s Monitor will offer the accuracy of hospital grade equipment in an affordable, convenient, and easy to use package.
Website: www.seymourenterprises.us
SmrtEn (clean tech)
SmrtEn provides a subscription service to homeowners to save them 20+% on their energy bill by continuously programming WiFi home thermostats. Unlike Nest Labs, we are a cloud based service whose Artificial Algorithms are extensible to other home appliances.
Website: www.smrten.com
Solar Stream Innovation (clean tech)
Solar Stream Innovations sells packaged solar solutions to Hotels, Multifamily Housing, Elderly Care Facilities, and Hospitals who want the renewable benefits of Solar Energy with a faster return on investment and back-up power generation. Unlike direct competition concentrating solar power technologies, we use primarily low cost, mass manufactured components to reduce installation and maintenance costs in providing valuable performance. Also, unlike substitute photovoltaic competitors, we offer low cost reliable back-up power generation.
Website: Coming Soon
Sonoran Biosciences, Inc. (life sciences)
Sonoran Biosciences is developing antimicrobial technology for hospitals burdened with the high cost of surgical site infections. Our proprietary product’s unmatched combination of liquid properties and sustained release will provide greatly improved protection against infection.
Website: Coming Soon
Vantage Realized (health tech)
Vantage Realized improves the quality of life for people with disabilities. Through its first product, the Mechaddy, a lever-operated device that uses a chest press motion to propel a mechanical wheelchair, it will improve mobility for manual wheelchair users who want to prevent carpal tunnel syndrome as well as joint damage from occurring to their rotator cuffs.
Website: www.vantagerealized.com
Their wheelchair product looks so cool, I had to include a concept diagram:
Veterans Now (social enterprise)
VETERANS NOW provides comprehensive and integrated student-Veteran housing communities featuring programs and services to universities who want to recruit, support, and retain Veterans. By providing student-Veteran housing, VETERANS NOW creates a strong Veteran cohort, which facilitates Veteran success as defined by higher university retention and graduation rates.
Website: Coming Soon
Viomics (life sciences)
Viomics sells the next generation lung cancer test for doctors and their patients who want to detect it while it is still treatable. Viomics can detect lung cancer early enough to treat, and often cure it, substantially increasing a patient’s chances of survival.
Website: www.viomics.com
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