A St. Louis startup that makes smart workplace badges designed to help keep hospital employees safer was the first-place winner of the 2022 Summerfest Tech Pitch Competition in Milwaukee.
Kwema, which has been backed locally by Arch Grants and Capital Innovators, took home the top prize of $25,000. Medical assistive artificial intelligence startup Parrots Inc. of Washington, D.C., won the $10,000 second-place prize. Milwaukee's computer science education platform Rex Academy earned the $5,000 third-place honor. The winners were announced Thursday afternoon at the grounds of Summerfest, a music festival held each summer in Milwaukee.
Four other participating startups — eCourt Reporters, Huupe, Light Pong and Cirkled-in — each received $2,500.
The seven participating companies pitched to an audience and panel of five judges Thursday morning at the Milwaukee Artist Resource Network (MARN) Art + Culture Hub in Milwaukee's Third Ward.
Scroll through the attached slideshow to see photos from the event.
Kwema's smart badges allow health care workers to call for help in the event of a workplace emergency and reduce security teams' response times, Kwema CEO and co-founder Ali Al Jabry said during his pitch. Around 80% of all workplace violence occurs in hospitals, which average anywhere from 50 to 1,000 assaults per month, he said.
The technology can pinpoint employees' exact locations within a sprawling hospital facility, Jabry said. Employees opt-in to sharing their location if they're in danger, which has led to unanimous buy-in from all employee groups, he added.
The pitch competition was produced by Milwaukee's Young Enterprising Society (Y.E.S.), led by Khalif El-Amin and Que El-Amin, and was sponsored by Molson Coors Beverage Co.
The judges were Hyde Park Ventures associate Dawn Nguyen, Alumni Ventures principal Keaton Nankivil, 5 Lakes Institute executive director Kathleen Gallagher, CLIMB USA Inc. president Robert Wynn and Molson Coors Beverage Co. chief information officer Darrin Vohs.
The pitch competition was among dozens of events Wednesday and Thursday as part of the Summerfest Tech conference. Other events included VC MKE, an effort to connect founders of color with venture capital investors, and a panel about engineering and IT collaboration with Rockwell Automation and Generac Power Systems executives.
