Editor's Note: 2nd place winner OhmMaker was later disqualified, and their prize vacated. According to Paul Nichols, executive director of the UT-Dallas Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, "During a post-event review by committee, it was determined that that team was unable to meet prize qualifications."
Crowds packed the auditorium at UT-Dallas’ Edith O’Donnell Arts and Technology building to watch six undergrad and graduate finalists face off and pitch their ideas to a panel of judges in a Shark Tank-style competition Tuesday evening.
Up for grabs at the 2019 UT-Dallas Big Idea Competition was a $25,000 grand prize and a $10,000 and $5,000 cash prize for the second and third place winners, respectively. The competition debuted in 2007, and remains one of the institution's largest events of the year. This year, more than 216 applications were submitted, and 36 of those made it to the semi-finals.
“If you are trying to start a company stay here in Dallas, you’ll have plenty of opportunities,” Dayakar Puskoor, a general partner at Naya Ventures, said during the competition. “There’s so many Fortune 500 companies that are here, and everyday new companies are moving… you can find customers in Dallas.”
After hearing pitches from the six finalists and asking questions about their ideas and business strategies, the judges took an extended time choosing the winner. However, when they emerged, founder Anish Hegde and his startup ResumePuppy came out on top. Phyo Sone and Long Le’s edtech startup OhmMaker took second, while Mehmet Günal's nonprofit platform Access My Research took third.
Here’s a closer look at the student startups that took the stage.
ResumePuppy (1st Place) is a cloud-based resume generating software product that screens job descriptions for keywords, then using natural language processing and machine learning, makes changes to a users’ resume to improve their odds of getting a job interview. Hedge said he started the business after applying for internships and not even receiving calls back from many of his applications.
“Think about it, we spent thousands of hours, years of hard work to come to this point, and at the end of the day an applicant tracking system decides if you get that dream job interview or not,” Hegde said at the event. “We want the right people getting the right jobs.”
He found this was not an uncommon problem after speaking with friends. During a test run at the university, within 10 days, ResumePuppy had more than 100 subscribers. The startup plans on releasing a beta version of the software at the end of the year.
OhmMaker (2nd Place) is a STEM-based edtech startup focused on encouraging middle and high school students to pursue STEM careers. After the award ceremony, it was later determined by UT-Dallas that OhmMaker did not qualify for the award. The startup was disqualified and their prize will remain vacant.
Access My Research (3rd Place) is a nonprofit social platform working to remove barriers to academic research. Much academic research is locked by publishers behind expensive pay walls, making it difficult for even some universities to pay the fee. However, founder Mehmet Günal found there were some ways to get around that - researchers are allowed to share their work person-to-person and nonprofits do not infringe on most for-profit publisher’s copyrights. Through the platform, Günal hopes to allow for more sharing and access to academic research from around the world. Access My Research plans to launch in the UT system in the next few months.
CodAR is an AR visualization platform, focused on students and programmers. The technology creates visual projections of algorithms and data structures that then can be manipulated by the user. The startup was launched by Neha Aggarwal, Siddhartha Sahai and Aditya Singh. CodAR plans on rolling out its software at UT-Dallas in 2020.
IDA is a platform connecting female entrepreneurs to mentors, investors and digital resources. According to Startupnation.com, about 73% of women business owners say one of their biggest challenges is lack of capital, while 48% said a lack of available mentors was a significant challenge. IDA, which stands for Ideate, Decide, Act, uses AI to help provide personalized insights into their business to help it grow. IDA is planning to launch a beta testing version of its platform soon.
Comely is a dating and social app that focuses on limiting the number of steps between signing up and meeting someone. The app shows users where others around them are, allowing people to connect more directly. Comely launched on Google and Apple app stores in March. Founder Amelia Novikau said that she projects Comely to become profitable by the end of 2021.
