Poole College Students Find Success at 2017 Lulu eGames; One Receives Three First Place Awards

Five ventures submitted by NC State Poole College of Management students came away with solid wins from the 2017 Lulu eGames startup competition, held Thursday, April 20, 2017.

One of teams – VieMetrics – earned three first-place awards for its founder, Jeffrey London White, a first-year student in the NC State Jenkins MBA program. White, who is in the MBA program’s entrepreneurship and technology commercialization concentration, and his team have developed a low-cost, portable spirometer that can potentially predict asthma attacks. The venture received first place in the New Venture, Design and Prototype, and Social Impact categories, with a $10,000 prize award for the New Venture award, and $5,000 each for the two other awards. Other members of the team and their academic majors are Eric Beppler, electrical and computer engineering; James Dieffenderfer, biomedical engineering; and Charles Hood, electrical engineering. 

White also received second place in the New Venture category, for SaKaroTec, which provides an innovative new way to preserve red blood cells that will revolutionize the blood supply industry. This award came with a $7,000 prize. White’s team members on this team are Scott Frazee and Karthik Narasimhan, both in the Jenkins MBA Technology Entrepreneurship Commercialization certificate program. Frazee is a master’s student in biomanufacturing and Narasimhan, a master’s degree student in mechanical engineering.

RipeNow, LLC, a venture led by Seth McMillan, a senior in business administration, received first place and a $5,000 prize in the Built on Cloud category which is for ventures using one or more of IBM’’s Cloud Services. McMillan’s venture is a platform that connects restaurants with crowdsourced produce from local farms. 

Second place in the Social Impact category went to Rhytchor, led by Tyler Murray, a junior in business administration. His product, PulseAware by Rhythcor, aims to combat the biggest killer among firefighters, heart attacks, by continuously monitoring their heart, detecting signs of a heart attack, and alerting emergency services. This award came with a $3,000 prize. 

Ben Bradley, a second-year student in the Jenkins MBA program, received second place and $3,000 in the Arts Ventures category for Thrive Collective, an organization that fosters collaboration and education in the nonprofit sector. View this startup’s pitch video.

Additionally, two teams from Poole were finalists but did not place in the final round.

• Rhythm | Student: Doron Caspin, Business Administration. Rhythm is a data-driven health monitoring system for firefighters. View this startup’s pitch video.
• Minimalo | Students: Malika Hadjaz & Laurent Fenouil, Global Innovation. Minimalo is a website and an app that will allow users to find the cheapest route available online, to go from any city to another across Europe, in a few seconds by combining several means of transportation. View this startup’s pitch video.

There were 192 entries into the competition, representing 10 out of 12 of NC State’s colleges. The Lulu eGames are managed by the Entrepreneurship Initiative at NC State University, and are open to all students at NC State.

Read more about the Lulu eGames in this WRAL TechWire story and the NC State story. The seniors and several of the MBA students in this story will be graduating on May 13. Read about our commencement events.