At the Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center of the University of Texas at San Antonio Thursday, five teams of interdisciplinary student entrepreneurs competed for thousands in prizes at the annual Student Technology Venture Competition.
Each year, engineering, computer science and liberals students create a new technology project for the event, while business students create the business plan to commercialize the product. Students from any major may participate in the competition, held annually and in its 13th year. Prize money is funded by UTSA alongside Blackstone LaunchPad.
The student innovation center is helmed by Randy Quinn, executive director.
Students work throughout the semester to develop a product and business plan to start a new company, then compete for funding and services to launch their startup. Teams are judged on three criteria, Quinn told the Business Journal: their pitch, their prototype and their business plan.
The winning startup Thursday was Remedium, which targets athletic muscle injuries and athletic performance by sewing electroconductive fabric into compression shorts. These relay electrical signals to a Bluetooth module that gives athletes data on recovery and workouts. The team, consisting of students Jaime Benavides, Felipe Morales, Rich Yi and Isaiah Arredondo, was awarded $8,000 in prize money.
The No. 2 startup was BackPack, which received $5,000. The product is a cost-effective and biocompatible disc replacement that lessens compression in the spine's lumbar area invented by students Garrett Fernandez, Lizet Rojas, Kayla Ruiz and Ashley Ridoutt. The third-place spot went to Blynx, a code-free app that lets users have control over all aspects of their LED lighting. Its creators were students John Navarro and Joe Gonzalez.
The competition kicked off Feb. 9 with a first-round pitch competition held March 24. Past winners include startups MECM Medical, which took first place in 2021, Tranquility Therapeutics, which placed second and Consilio Prothesium, which placed third.
Quinn said UTSA hopes the contest equips student entrepreneurs with a blueprint for how to take an idea and move it toward commercialization. If students choose to pursue the venture further, the Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center can help connect them to local accelerators and incubators like Geekdom and VelocityTX; mentors like those participating in UTSA's Venture Mentoring Services, and globally recognized organizations like Blackstone Founder Fellowships.
