First and second place teams win three months rent free space at Advanced Technology & Manufacturing Center in Fall River
A team made up of students earning their MBAs, a Computer Engineering PhD student, and a young professional won first place at the inaugural Startup Weekend at UMass Dartmouth this past weekend. The team designed a new digital dice, "Infinity Qube," which the group hopes will replace the need for multiple dice for gamers. The device, which the team used a 3D printer to design and create, can match up with a custom board game or be used to create new games.
"I am very pleased to see that Startup Weekend event took off with flying colors at UMass Dartmouth and has attracted undergraduate and undergraduate students, developers, designers, marketers, product managers, and startup enthusiasts alike come together have shared ideas, form teams, build products, and launch a startup," said UMass Dartmouth Charlton College of Business Dean A. "Guna" Gunasekaran, Ph.D. "We are strongly committed to promoting innovation and entrepreneurship at UMass Dartmouth and in the SouthCoast and proud to host this inaugural event."
Team "Inifinity Qube" and second place team "Friend In Need," which designed an app to allow students to connect with their peers looking for services such as babysitting, driving, or cleaning, will receive three months of free space at UMass Dartmouth's Advanced Technology & Manufacturing Center in Fall River. The top three teams from this weekend, which also includes third place team "Galaxy Inn" a travel app connecting travelers with families in other countries willing to provide housing and culture immersion services, will receive free marketing, public relations, and business plan support for their startup idea.
"The takeaway is that the entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well on campus, as evidenced by the almost 40 students who gave up an entire, holiday, weekend to pursue a business idea," said Charlton College of Business Assistant Dean Toby Stapleton. "These students spent 54 hours developing a business idea, prototype, market research, and finally a pitch presentation which was delivered to a panel of judges on Sunday. I've been involved in a few of these type of events, and the business ideas and presentations that our students made were among the best that I have ever seen."
Judges for Startup Weekend were Executive Director of Cherrystone Angel Group Jennifer Schwall, Senior Lecturer at MIT Sloan School of Management Dr. Val Livada, Massachusetts Small Business Development Center Network's Melinda Ailes, and Senior Business Advisor at the Massachusetts Small Business Development Center Cliff Robbins.
Startup Weekends, powered by Google for Entrepreneurs, are 54-hour, weekend-long, hands-on experiences where entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs can find out if their startup ideas are viable. On average, half of Startup Weekend's attendees have technical or design backgrounds, and the other half have business backgrounds.
UMass Dartmouth distinguishes itself as a vibrant, public research university dedicated to engaged learning and innovative research resulting in personal and lifelong student success. The University serves as an intellectual catalyst for economic, social, and cultural transformation on a global, national, and regional scale.