Charlotte Venture Challenge
May 1, 2018: The 17th edition of the Charlotte Venture Challenge featured 13 of Charlotte’s most-promising, fledgling startups on stage at UNC Charlotte’s Center City Campus in Uptown.
Before an audience of more than 100 colleagues, investors, community leaders, startup consultants and researchers, concepts in various stages of development were showcased – with cash prizes and potential funding on the line. This year’s program also debuted a, “new, interactive format that focuses on promising innovation emerging from UNC Charlotte research and the Charlotte community,” says Ventureprise Associate Director Devin Collins.
As one of 80 National Science Foundation (NSF) I-Corps Sites, UNC Charlotte/Ventureprise is a national leader in customer discovery and business model generation. A 2016 selection by the NC IDEA FOUNDATION as an entrepreneurial ecosystem partner provided the support to extend the program beyond Charlotte, to include promising startups from all of western North Carolina.
Three CCI students were winners in the 49er iChallenge Student Competition:
Treven Stoddard earned the top honor for his Genubot, an application created for students taking calculus that uses machine learning to determine what topic they need to improve on.
The recognition emboldened Stoddard’s drive. “Winning the competition was great motivation for me to continue working on my application,” he said. “Many of the people that I networked with after told me that they struggled with learning math as well.”
In second place were Mohamad Aboufoul and Mohamed Salad for their shopping app, Tijarah, which allows users to scan items as they walk through stores and then check out with a single swipe of their phone.
Two CCI faculty participated in the NSF I-Corps and were also panelists:
Dr. Zbigniew Ras presented ResArt, a recommender system for visual objects, like paintings.
Dr. Mohamed Shehab presented SmarTrek, a theory-driven mobile app to prevent alcohol use among college students based on motivational inspiration.
In addition to Ras and Shehab, fellow CCI Faculty and Venture Challenge alums Drs. Celine Latulipe, David Wilson and Sybil Huskey were invited to present their award-winning Video Collaboratory, which was then included in the Venture Challenge People’s Choice category.
For those in attendance, there is no question that Charlotte is an emerging powerhouse in the tech sector.
Today, Ventureprise, which began as the Ben Craig Center in 1987, is fully integrated within UNC Charlotte’s Research and Economic Development group, which is located on campus in the PORTAL building. Ventureprise is committed to serving the community and campus as a center of excellence for evidence-based entrepreneurship via Ventureprise Launch, the Charlotte Venture Challenge and the 49er Foundry student business incubator.
To Learn More, Visit: entrepreneurship.charlottewp.psapp.dev