Category Archives: E-Fund

E-Fund Grant Winners | Fall 2022

Public Health Beyond Borders Inc.

Student: Sara Miller
Prize: $324.00

Globally, incredible amounts of morbidity and mortality are caused by preventable diseases that can be mitigated by changes in health behavior and community-level health interventions. Oral diseases impact nearly 3.5 billion people, malaria affected 241 individuals in 2020, and diet-related noncommunicable diseases are linked to unhealthy eating behaviors that persist internationally (WHO). Public Health Beyond Borders, Inc. is determined to empower families and communities both locally and globally, to achieve their best health through sustainable education workshops and advocacy. We envision a world where the next generation of global health professionals works collaboratively with communities to identify, combat, and reduce health disparities.

Current PHBB, Inc. projects are located in Compone, Peru; Calaba Town, Sierra Leone; Varanasi, India; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and locally in Prince George’s County, Maryland. Since the founding of PHBB in 2013, nearly 1,000 students, faculty, and graduate students have traveled on 13 international trips and reached nearly 3,000 children and community members. PHBB is focused on building sustainable relationships with partner communities and approaching its work through a culturally competent lens. All PHBB, Inc. interventions are based on needs-based assessments that ensure the development of relevant and effective material. Ties with our partner community are sustained through constant communication, even through the COVID-19 pandemic, in which projects were still completed including fundraising for school materials for SouthPoint elementary school in India, the creation of COVID-19 health promotion videos for our partner school in Compone, Peru, the sending of an iPad to Abigail D. Butscher Primary School in Calaba Town, Sierra Leone, and other fundraising events and projects in all partner communities. PHBB, Inc.’s efforts are directed towards making a change in these partner communities on a personal level by understanding what the focus of the most effective intervention would be. In addition to having a global influence, the goal is to reduce health disparities while instilling long-lasting knowledge of cultural competency in the group members to create a generational impact.

Use of Funds

Public Health Beyond Borders, Inc. previously received $314 from the Dingman Center for similar costs incurred by our start-up, which allowed us to continue hosting our website and maintain our social media.


JuJu Inc.

Students: Kent Wang, Zeyang Liu, Nanxin Luo
Prize: $1000.00

Juju Food Delivery provides affordable food delivery for busy students and workers. We use bulk delivery and food locker pick-up to improve efficiency and reduce delivery costs.

Learn more at jujufooddelivery.com.

Use of Funds

  1. Marketing Events, Tabling Event ($400)
  2. Website Server, API, Text API ($400)
  3. Branding Material, worker’s brand clothes ($200)

Herbin’s Fashion

Students: Herbert Obeng
Prize: $1000.00

Herbin’s Fashion mission is to promote the heritage and style of African culture and use some of the profits to donate to the less privileged in the Society.

Learn more in their feature at on the Diamondback.

Use of Funds

  • Inventory: $500
  • Transportation: $200
  • Shipping: $300

NotUrAverage Candles

Students: Courtney Johnson ’23
Prize: $1500.00

NotUrAverage Candles’ mission is to highlight the wonders of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) through fragrance. They aim to not only provide phenomenal candles with dynamic scents but expose our customers to various STEM fields and phenomena. Each line released will be centered around a different field. All NotUrAverage Candles are hand-poured and made with sustainability in mind. All materials in our candles are environmentally friendly, phthalate-free, and reusable.

They will use their funds to prepare for the holiday season.

Use of Funds

  • Wax: $360
  • Fragrance Oils: $300
  • Wicks: $110
  • Jars: $270
  • Lids: $240
  • Storage Shelf: $100
  • Canva Pro: $120

Game Changers New York

Students: Sara Blau ’24
Prize: $1000.00

Game Changers New York is a 501(c)3 non-profit organizations that collects and distributes sports equipment for kids in need globally.

They will use their funds to help underrepresented children who don’t have access to sports equipment.

Use of Funds

  • $360 – one year subscription to Quickbooks
  • $444 – 6 hours of work of website developer
  • $196 – 2.45 hours of work of our accountant


UCleaner

Students: Robert Choe ’23
Prize: $500.00

There are 4 million individuals (3 million adolescents and 1 million adults) that receive dental braces treatment every year. Unfortunately, braces wearers face a long and complicated oral hygiene routine that compromises their oral health. Specifically, this population faces an increased risk of developing cavities and gum disease during/after treatment. When we overview the market, there is no oral hygiene product that specifically caters to this population. Our venture aims to develop a full-mouth oral hygiene device that primarily utilizes fluid-jet action to remove the debris and plaque off the high-risk area on teeth and dental braces.

Use of Funds

  • $500 – Prototyping and redesign of device casing

Exercise Network

Students: Candace Austin ’23
Prize: $1500.00

At Exercise Network we design fitness and aquatics programs to help individuals Live.Life. Healthier. We are solving the problem of physical activity levels declining especially among children. Researchers have found that this decline is linked to an increase in chronic disease cases, such as sudden cardiac arrest and obesity, developing among children.

Use of Funds

  • $900- Licenses and Certifications necessary for Fitness Instruction
  • $250- Website/online development (Updating website, creating digital promotional content)
  • $200- 1 month of space rental for class demos
  • $100- Equipment for classes
  • $50- Marketing & Ads (Printing Flyers, Signs, Digital Ads)

That’s a Wrap! Fall 2021 at the Dingman Center

The Dingman Center team celebrated Venture Programs Intern Barathi Aravindan’s Fall 2021 graduation at Terpzone.

The Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship is wrapping up a semester of live, virtual and hybrid programming. We are pleased to report that our students are excited to engage with us in person while still having some virtual options. As finals week comes to an end and holiday break begins, we want to take the time to reflect on the Dingman Center’s successful programs, events and more. Join us in looking at our Fall 2021 semester recap!

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E-Fund Recipients of Spring 2021

Through generous gifts from Carly Fiorina and Kevin Plank, the Dingman Center provides ad-hoc seed funding for University of Maryland startups, called the E-Fund. These nondilutive grants range from $250-$1000. Funding typically goes towards equipment purchases, website hosting, rapid prototyping, incorporation fees or any other costs that you see a barrier to getting an idea to market.

Check out this semester’s E-Fund recipients!

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Edullo

Founders: Eric Patel ’21 and Esha Vangara

Edullo is a platform created by students for students. They connect scholars to freelancers to do their part of level the playing field in education. Their $500 E-Fund will go towards supporting and maintaining their data-heavy website platform.

WISE Cities, LLC

Founder: Marie Brodsky

WISE Cities recently won a pilot project with the City of Fairfax following a smart city challenge competition, proposing WISE Cities: Where Innovating Supports the Elderly. Stemming from what they saw facing their own grandparents: a major problem that continues to worsen is the isolation and inactivity experienced by seniors, especially in lower income communities, associated with depression as well as neurodegenerative conditions and long-term health problems. They are working towards two goals: in the shorter term, a geographically-based senior social network app, and in the longer term, the construction of WISE spaces (senior areas for exercise and interaction) in several DMV locations. Their $640 E-Fund will be applied to developing the app. *Update: an additional $360 E-Fund will be applied to further development and user interface design to improve the app’s ease of accessibility.

GoodNewsUniversity

Founder: Oluwafunsho Adeyale, ’21

A new clothing collection, GoodNewsUniversity is coming into the world with some bold fresh trends. Their $500 E-Fund will be used for airbrushing their next line.

Camp Segal, LLC

Founders: Max Segal ’21 and Jacob Nelson ’21

Camp Segal provides the support and infrastructure for college-aged individuals to open up small summer camps. They look to establish a series of camp locations in a time where parents look for camps to focus on safety, proximity, and flexibility. Their $1000 E-Fund will be applied to website development and to expand marketing outreach in New Jersey and New York.