This summer, the Dingman Center will be conducting interviews with the ten student startups who are participating in the Terp Startup summer accelerator phase of our Fearless Founders program. Participating student entrepreneurs received a stipend up to $5,000 that would enable them to work exclusively on their startups over eight weeks in the summer.
Citizens of Earth
Founder and CEO: Michael Sheehan ’18, Business Management major with a specialization in Entrepreneurship
DC: Tell us about your startup. What problem are you solving and for whom?
Sheehan: Citizens of Earth has founded a mission to find solutions for sustainable living. Research has proven that our single largest use of land, water and fossil fuels comes from the production, distribution and processing of food. This is a major concern for social and environmental sustainability. As an organization, we provide a solution to improve food sustainability by increasing local and natural food production. Local and naturally grown food reduces waste and pollution associated with industrial food production. We offer a service to install and maintain edible gardens and landscapes. The purpose of our business model is to provide a chemical-free, eco-friendly, and high-quality food supply to homes and community centers. If every home produced seasonal fruit and vegetables we would all begin to live a healthier, happier and more harmonious lifestyle.
University of Maryland junior Didac Hormiga is the founder of mobile app 
Senior electrical engineering major Erich Meissner came up with the idea for a new kind of wearable fall detection device after his grandmother experienced a fall. He learned from her doctor that over 40% of senior falls are due to syncopy, a sudden loss of consciousness, which isn’t solved by common fall notification systems like Life Alert that require users to press a button. Furthermore, his grandmother had a Life Alert but wasn’t wearing it at the time—many seniors feel these devices carry an unwanted stigma advertising their loss of independence. Teaming up with junior pre-med student Maria Chen and sophomore computer science major Kyle Liu, Erich launched Symbiont Health to tackle the issue of unconscious elderly falls. In 2017, they competed in the Do Good Challenge and took second place in the Ventures track, then participated in the Terp Startup summer incubator phase of our 
George Lee, a senior finance major at University of Maryland, came up with the idea for 
Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship 