The Pitch Dingman Competition Finals were on Tuesday, March 7 and as promised the Dingman Center and our partners gave away more than $30,000 in startup funding! Here’s the breakdown:
The David & Robyn Quattrone Grand Prize – $15,000
Curu, David Potter & Abb Kapoor
Second Place Prize – $7,500
CourseHunter, Aaron Bloch, Benjamin Khakshoor
Third Place Prize – $3,500
Gravity LLC, Richard Kong
Audience Choice Prize – $1,500
Curu, David Potter & Abb Kapoor
Runners Up
Grumpy Joes, Gary Hwang
POSH, Nathalyn Nunoo
Founder: Jason Gates
Compology places sensors on dumpsters to track dumpster volume and reroute waste pickup to skip empty dumpsters. Compology improves hauler margins by 50% by reducing fuel costs and vehicle maintenance from inefficient routing and increasing crew utilization. The team believes “smart trash” can significantly reduce costs in the $68B waste industry. Jason is a 2011 graduate of the University of Maryland.
Disease Diagnostic Group (DDG) has produced a rapid, accurate and inexpensive handheld device that can diagnose Malaria within one minute with one drop of blood, similar to a diabetes test. Existing alternatives include blood drops that must be tested in a lab and have slower turnaround and pregnancy-test like strips that are unreliable due to unstable storage conditions. John is a graduate student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Encore Alert monitors social media for mid-market brands and identifies the most important influencers and trending conversations. Brands are struggling to react to the large volume of social media data and rarely take action. Encore Alert automatically sends simple alerts to notify a brand of a high priority conversation (influential post, trending topic, PR risk) and provides recommendations to take action (retweet, write blog post, or respond). James is a 2013 graduate of Georgetown University.
Kohana is developing a quiet, compact and discrete breast pump. Current breast pumps use loud, vacuum technology that force women to pump in isolation, often making it impossible for working mothers to keep up with demands of pumping and work. Kohana’s wearable compression technology simulates hand-expression instead of high-powered suction, allowing women to pump anytime and anywhere. Susan is a 2013 graduate of The Johns Hopkins University.
Founder: Chase Kaczmarek
Wheel Shields are a longboarding accessory that improve safety, block mud and enable skaters to perform more advanced tricks.These metal hubcaps create a physical barrier between the wheel and the board, preventing the accidental braking that often throws skaters from their boards. Chase is a current undergraduate student at the University of Maryland.
