ECE Student Wins Global Startup Battle

ECE M.S./Ph.D. student Md. Shaad Mahmud's team won the 2015 year's overall global startup battle (GSB) Champion in the Co Innovator's Track, among thousands of teams from events where over 25,000 entrpreneurs attended across 60 countries. The competition is organized globally by Techstars company (http://www.techstars.com/).  Shaad's team started the competition regionally in UMassD ATMC startup weekend (http://www.umassd.edu/news/startupweekend2015.html) in Nov 13-15, 2015.  The competition project idea was pitched by Shaad on Friday night, and formed the team right after.  Every pitcher needs to explain the idea to all attendees. On 14th November Shaad started the competition with two software engineers, one designer, and four marketing students.  The android application was developed by Esfar E Alam Turzo and Tanmay Thakar.  Peter Cakounes, an undergrad student designed the fabricated the 3D model of the first prototype.  Dean Wile, Yu-Hsuan Chiu, Supranee Hongcherdchoosakul, and Linh Dao did the marketing, customer survery, and business model of this project.

The GSB competition project is about "Smart Case", which is an intelligent case for smartphones with biomedical sensors and an emergency button. The case can be used for health monitoring and personal emergency alert.  The technical components of sensor and communication parts in the project are supported by NSF grant (Award Number#1401711) titled "Design of wearable biosensor system with wireless network for the remote detection of life threatening events and neonates".  Shaad joined UMass Dartmouth in Fall 2014 and has been a research assistant for the NSF project.  He has published several research papers in the area of wearable sensors under the project.  The competition prizes include a trip to Amsterdam worth USD 13000, LSTN headphones, work space in Boston for one year, Founder Institute membership, Platinum tickets to NewCO Festival and USE 120,000 credit from "softlayer" to start a company.