On August 6, 2020, DifferenceMaker held its second Boot Camp speaker series session! Past DifferenceMaker Idea Challenge winners and guest speakers Rajia Abdelaziz and Ray Hamilton, co-founders of invisaWear, shared their tips on funding sources and strategies to the 2020 Idea Challenge Winners.
invisaWear won Innovative Technology Solution award, a $4,500 prize, at the 2016 Idea Challenge. Since then, they have grown their business tremendously and are making a meaningful impact on the world.
They have successfully launched their product, which are necklaces and charms that are stylish safety devices. On the back of their products, there are hidden buttons. When pressed, the button alerts up to five people and the police with a link to your GPS location and notification stating that you need help and are in an emergency situation. This product has already saved many lives, and has also been featured on television channels such as multiple news stations, ABC’s Good Morning America and the Rachael Ray show!
Rajia Abdelaziz and Ray Hamilton, co-founders of invisaWear, presenting their tips and advice when it comes to funding sources and strategies.
During their presentation, Rajia and Ray spoke about their experiences with receiving funding for their startup and gave advice to the current 2020 Idea Challenge student finalists about the options they have to obtain funding, with tips for strategies that will help them approach potential investors with confidence. They spoke about the hurdles they encountered, examples for future pitch competitions and accelerators, and funding strategies.
Rajia Abdelaziz and Ray Hamilton of invisaWear speaking about the different types of institutional investors.
When the presentation was over, Rajia and Ray answered questions from the student teams. The participants asked questions regarding how to approach friends/family when asking for investment, where to start when it comes to receiving funding, and how to stay inspired when competitors emerge.
DifferenceMaker would like to give a huge thank you to invisaWear for being guest speakers at the Boot Camp Speaker Series and for inspiring future entrepreneurs!
To learn more about invisaWear, please visit their website and social media platforms:
On July 9, 2020, DifferenceMaker held its first Boot Camp speaker series session! Past DifferenceMaker Idea Challenge winners and guest speakers Katie Muise and Michelle Mallioux shared their experiences with pursuing their business, Ambulatory Innovations.
Ambulatory Innovations won Honorable Mention, a $2,000 award, at the 2019 $50K DifferenceMaker Idea Challenge. Since then, they have grown their business and improved their product, the C.A.T. Mat.
The C.A.T. Mat system is a modular set of one square foot mat pieces that simulate uneven outdoor terrains, therefore helping to improve gait training. Since 2019, Michelle, Katie, and their team have gone on to win other competitions and accolades, such as:
· 2019 UMass Lowell DifferenceMaker Idea Challenge: Honorable Mention $2,000
Ha Pho, Entrepreneurial Initiatives Project Manager, introducing team Ambulatory Innovations and their product, the C.A.T. Mat.
During their presentation, Michelle and Katie spoke about their experiences with customer discovery and gave advice to the current 2020 Idea Challenge student finalists about how they can research and discover who their customers and users are. They spoke about the hurdles they encountered, tips for connecting with customers, and experiences they had at other competitions.
Michelle Mallioux and Katie Muise of Ambulatory Innovations answering questions during a Q&A with the 2020 Idea Challenge student finalists.
Towards the end of the session, Michelle and Katie answered questions from the student teams. The participants asked questions regarding how to manage a startup while being busy with work and school, how to find additional funding opportunities, and advice on speaking to potential customers. Katie and Michelle answered each question with lots of detail and clarity!
We would like to give a huge thank you to Ambulatory Innovations for being guest speakers at the Boot Camp Speaker Series and for inspiring future entrepreneurs!
To learn more about Ambulatory Innovations, please visit their website and social media platforms:
The goals of this Boot Camp are to increase the teams’ understanding of their customer segments, the value their ideas will provide, increase understanding of their business model, and more! This is done through various homework assignments, customer discovery interviews, research, videos, books, and individualized team sessions.
The first session started off with an introduction of what to expect for the summer. This included all ten teams, Holly Butler, Director, Ha Pho, Manager, and two guest speakers from Foley & Lardner, Chris McKenna, Partner and IP Lawyer and Alumni, Francis College of Engineering, and David Kantaros, Partner and business lawyer.
However, the following sessions will be individualized team meetings with DifferenceMaker staff and mentors, where feedback and advice on each project will be specific to each team.
Introductions featuring: Holly Butler, Entrepreneurial Initiatives Project Director. Ha Pho, Entrepreneurial Initiatives Project Manager. Chris McKenna, Foley & Lardner. David Kantaros, Foley & Lardner.
Ha led the first half of the session where she spoke about startups vs. companies, the business model canvas, customer discovery, and more. She also provided examples from previous DifferenceMaker teams such as the C.A.T. Mat, Invisawear, and Nonspec.
Ha Pho, Entrepreneurial Initiatives Project Manager, explaining each section of the Business Model Canvas.
The second half of the session was led by guest speakers Dave Kantaros and Chris McKenna, attorneys at Foley & Lardner. They spoke about company formation, types of entities, equity, and more. They also are providing teams with $15,000 of in-kind legal service prizes!
David Kantaros, Foley & Larder, presenting about company formation.
A huge thank you to David Kantaros and Chris McKenna for being guest speakers at this session’s Boot Camp and for sponsoring $15,000 in prizes.
Congratulations to all teams, and good luck with the rest of the summer Boot Camp!
On April 15, from 5 p.m. – 8:30 p.m., DifferenceMaker held its 8th Annual $50,000 Idea Challenge!
From April 7-9, the DifferenceMaker Preliminary Pitch-off took place in a virtual format. The event engaged 27 student teams from all UMass Lowell academic colleges and over 25 alumni and community judges. These 27 teams were chosen from an initial pool of 62 team applications. On April 9, ten inspiring student teams were selected to move on and compete for a portion of $50,000 in funding at the Idea Challenge on April 15.
Due to COVID-19, the competition was held virtually. However, even with this hurdle, the event turned out to be a success! The event engaged over 105 attendees! Thank you to everyone who joined and made this possible. View a video of the Idea Challenge.
Thank you to all the judges for taking their time to attend the event and assist the student teams. You continue to help DifferenceMaker reach new heights.
(sponsored by Andrew Sutherland, ’94, Manning School of Business)
Smart Escape
“An electrical system that operates as a dynamic building evacuation guide during a fire evacuation.”
Team Members: ~ Noah Boudreau, Freshman, Finance ~ Kevin Downing, High School ~ Benjamin St. Gelais, Freshman, Environmental Engineering ~ Kevin Healy, Freshman, Electrical Engineering ~ Kevin Jeyakumar, Graduate, Computer Engineering ~ Alexander Meneses, Freshman, Finance ~ Andrew Regan, Freshman, Aerospace Engineering
Contribution to a Healthier Lifestyle, $4,000
(sponsored by Circle Health)
ConnectKnee
“A knee brace that incorporates the use of EMG sensors and goniometers to track and record a patient recovery, making it more efficient and hands on.”
(sponsored by the Jack Wilson Endowed Presidential Entrepreneurship Award Fund)
Smart Safety Outlet
“An Internet-of-Things (IoT) connected outlet that can secure and lock in place for safety purposes.”
Team members: ~ Romeo Cayabyab, Alumni, Electrical Engineering ~ Dmitry Chichinov, Junior, Mechanical Engineering ~ Brian Cotter, Senior, Electrical Engineering ~ David Holdbrook-Smith, Senior, Electrical Engineering ~ Nassim Nabat, Junior, Business ~ Divyanshu Verma, Alumni, Electrical Engineering
Commitment to a Sustainable Environment, $4,000
MissionHydro
“A green household hydrogen energy storage ecosystem that will reduce household carbon footprint and energy costs, as well as, have the ability to utilize the hydrogen generated for fuel cell electric mobility applications.”
Team members: ~ Aadith Arasu, Freshman, Physics ~ Ryan Beishline, Sophomore, Mechanical Engineering ~ Sarvesh Handa, Freshman, Electrical Engineering ~ Ali Semerci, Freshman, Mechanical Engineering
Honorable Mentions, $2,000
AFED – Autonomous Foot Exercising Device
“A shoe insole that autonomously exercises foot muscles, thereby strengthening the foot’s arch and improving overall body posture.”
Team members: ~ Catia Goncalbes Rodrigues, Senior, Biomedical Engineering ~ Edwind Medina, Senior, Biomedical Engineering ~ Kazi Proma, Senior, Biomedical Engineering ~ Kamal Rai, Senior, Biomedical Engineering
Green Wall Project/Living Wall
“Installing vertical green walls on university campuses to reduce CO2 and particulate matter, and increase concentrations of oxygen in the air.”
Team members: ~ David Razmadze, Senior, Computer Science ~ Hannah West, Senior, Public Health major & Business minor
Happy Pinning
“A product that will help Indian women clip together their traditional clothing quickly, easily, and effortlessly.”
Team members: ~ Ankit Patel, Graduate, Finance & Marketing ~ Happyben Patel, Graduate, MBA ~ Fenil Patel, Junior, Mechanical Engineering ~ Kevin Zhang, Sophomore, Computer Science
NoSno Mat
“An affordable snow- and ice-melting mat that requires virtually no work compared to shoveling or snow blowing.”
The event started at 9am with a welcome and introductions from Tom O’ Donnell, Senior Director of Innovation Initiatives, and Holly Butler, Entrepreneurial Initiatives Project Director of DifferenceMaker.
Holly Butler, Entrepreneurial Initiatives Project Director, giving a welcome to the students and introduction about the DifferenceMaker program at UMass Lowell.
Shortly after, 10 student teams pitched their projects. They pitched the problems, opportunities, and solutions that their project could solve. Each team was given time for a three-minute pitch, along with a Q&A session by the guest judges and the members in the audience.
Our guest judges for the High School Idea Challenge were:
After the team pitches, the judges stepped out to deliberate the winners of the Idea Challenge. While they deliberated, students were given the opportunity to network with students from the other school and learn more about what the UMass Lowell Innovation Hub offers.
Team DropOff: Elsie Yang and Celia Nicholson, pitching their idea of having an app that allows parents to coordinate carpool groups for their children.
Congratulations to all teams that won! Each team received a UMass Lowell Riverhawk Shop gift card:
1st place: $100 – The QuikLock: Adam Batchelder, Justin Carlyle, and Zach Lawrence
2nd place: $75 – Drop Off: Elsie Yang and Celia Nicholson
3rd place: $50 – SafeGuard: Amy Doran and Allie Carrara
4th place: $25 – Instatutor: Nick Cerioni and Will McPhail
Thank you to the UMass Lowell Innovation Hub, Westford Academy, and Nashoba Regional High School for collaborating with DifferenceMaker for this event! We hope that the high school students learned more about entrepreneurship and hopefully join us with DifferenceMaker in the future!
On Thursday, February 28th, DifferenceMaker held its final workshop series session! This was a four-part series designed to help student teams gain knowledge to help them move their project forward for the Rist $50,000 Idea Challenge. The theme of this evening was developing your rocket pitch.
The evening started off with dinner, refreshments, and networking. Shortly after, Ha Pho, Entrepreneurial Initiatives Project Manager, opened the session with reminders of deadlines coming up and recaps of all the previous sessions. She then introduced our guest speaker for the evening: Professor Mike Ciuchta, Manning School of Business.
After the introductions, Professor Ciuchta presented about how to develop a rocket pitch that will engage the audience and judges. He showed examples of previous team pitches’ along with the power point presentations that teams used in the past.
He then opened a discussion to the attendees. What were the teams’ strongest aspects of their pitches? Is there anything that they could’ve improved on? Everything that he presented helped teams think deeply about the way they plan to pitch: how will they pitch in a way that will help people understand the problems they are trying to solve, while keeping in mind that they will have five minutes on the stage to do so? Every second counts!
Professor Mike Ciuchta, Manning School of Business, teaching student teams about the importance of a well solidified pitch.
Students then broke off into their teams and worked on their rocket pitches. Faculty fellows and guest speakers David Vatalaro, Ha Pho, and Mike Ciuchta walked around and gave each team feedback about how they could improve their pitches even further.
Then, students pitched their projects and got live feedback about the parts that were well done and what parts needs improvement. This was a useful practice test before pitching in front of the judges at the Preliminary Pitch-off and $50,000 Idea Challenge!
One of the teams pitching their practice rocket pitch presentation!
We would like to thank everyone that attended the third workshop series session! Another huge thank you to guest speaker Mike Ciuchta for leading this session!
Don’t forget to also keep working hard to prepare for the $50,000 Idea Challenge! Some important dates coming up:
March 2, Idea Plan Due by 5 p.m.
March 16, Semi-finalists announced by email and social media
March 27, Revised Idea Plan, Rocket Pitch Presentation, and Poster Due by 5 p.m.
April 7, Preliminary Pitch-off
April 15, 2020 DifferenceMaker Idea Challenge Finals!
On Monday, February 24th, DifferenceMaker held its third workshop series session! This is a four-part series designed to help student teams gain knowledge to help them move their project forward for the Rist $50,000 Idea Challenge. The theme of this evening was developing business models.
The evening started off with dinner, refreshments, and networking. Shortly after, Holly Butler, Entrepreneurial Initiatives Project Director, gave an introduction and reminders for important deadlines. She then introduced our two guest speakers for the evening: Professor Tom O’Donnell, UMass Lowell Innovation Hub, and Professor Hunter Mack, Francis College of Engineering.
After the introductions, Professor Tom O’Donnell presented about the importance of a structured business model. A business model contains many factors – factors such as customer relationships, value propositions, revenue streams, and more. All these factors combined will equal a structured business model, which organizes all these factors in one and helps teams illustrate their potential trade-offs.
Professor Tom O’Donnell speaking about how to develop a proper business model to student teams.
Students broke into their teams to further develop their project and business models. Faculty fellows and guest speakers David Vatalaro, Hunter Mack, and Tom O’Donnell walked around and gave each team feedback and advice to make their business model well rounded.
Student teams working on developing their business model for their projects.
We would like to thank everyone that attended the third workshop series session! Another huge thank you to our guest speakers who led the session! We look forward to seeing you at our last session:
Workshop Series 4: Delivering Your Rocket Pitch, February 27
Dinner is served at each workshop, so please come hungry! Don’t forget to also keep working hard to prepare for the $50,000 Idea Challenge!
On Thursday, February 21st, DifferenceMaker held its second workshop series session! This is a four-part series designed to help student teams gain knowledge to help them move their project forward for the Rist $50,000 Idea Challenge. The theme of this evening was assessing opportunities and value propositions.
The evening started off with dinner, refreshments, and networking. Shortly after, Ha Pho, Entrepreneurial Initiatives Project Manager, gave an introduction and recap about the previous session, which was about identifying problems. She then introduced our two guest speakers for the evening: Faculty Fellows, Professor Brent Shell, Zuckerberg College of Health Sciences, and Professor Neil Shortland, College of Fine Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences.
Faculty Fellows that led the session this evening: Professor Neil Shortland, College of Fine Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences; Professor Brent Shell, Zuckerberg College of Health Sciences.
After the introductions, Professor Brent Shell presented about assessing opportunities. This allowed teams to think about their problems even further and think about whether their solutions may have a potential market segment. Then, student teams worked with each other to discuss what they learned with their own projects and presented to all attendees.
One of the teams presenting to everyone about the problem that they are working with and identifying the opportunity that their startup project has.
After the presentations, Professor Neil Shortland taught the teams about value propositions. This allowed teams to think about the value their projects will provide for consumers: will it provide the consumers enough value to make them want to buy it? He taught about the psychology of human nature, which is important. Although each project may seem amazing to the team who created it, it may not be the case for future potential customers. Therefore, it is important to talk to potential customers.
Faculty fellows and teams working on their solidifying their project’s opportunities and figuring out the value that it may provide to potential future customers.
We would like to thank everyone that attended the second workshop series session! Another huge thank you to our guest speakers who led the session! We look forward to seeing you at our next sessions: \
Workshop Series 3: Developing Business Models, February 24
Workshop Series 4: Delivering Your Rocket Pitch, February 27
Dinner is served at each workshop, so please come hungry! Don’t forget to also keep working hard to prepare for the $50,000 Idea Challenge!
On Tuesday, February 19th, DifferenceMaker held its first workshop series session! This is a four-part series designed to help student teams gain knowledge to help them move their project forward for the Rist $50,000 Idea Challenge. The theme of this evening was identifying problems.
The night started off with dinner, refreshments, and networking. Shortly after, Ha Pho, Entrepreneurial Initiatives Project Manager, gave an introduction and explained the plan for the evening. She then introduced our two guest speakers for the evening: Faculty Fellows, Professor Mazen El Gaziri, Zuckerburg College of Health Sciences, and Professor Tom Wilkes, Kennedy College of Sciences, who led the session.
Professor El Ghaziri started off the session by showing videos of examples of teams that had well defined problems. This allowed attendees to see how students pitch, and to see how they related their problem to the audience. Then, Professor Wilkes spoke even further about the importance of having a strong problem. A solution cannot be developed with a well defined problem.
Students then broke off into their teams to solidify their problems. After their problems were more defined, they wrote it on easel paper and presented it to the other teams. This allowed teams to give and receive helpful feedback.
Students working with each other to solidify the problem for their project.
We would like to thank everyone that attended the first workshop series session! Another huge thank you to our guest speakers who led the session! We look forward to seeing you at our next sessions:
Workshop Series 2: Assessing Opportunities and Value Proposition, February 20
Workshop Series 3: Developing Business Models, February 24
Workshop Series 4: Delivering Your Rocket Pitch, February 27
All workshops will be held in Lydon Library, Room 110, North Campus from 5:30 – 7:30PM!
Dinner is served at each workshop, so please come hungry! Don’t forget to also keep working hard to prepare for the $50,000 Idea Challenge!
The event started off with dinner and networking. Sandra Richtermeyer, Dean of the Manning School of Business, opened up the evening with welcoming remarks and judge introductions.
Our judges for the evening were:
Nancy D’Amico – Senior vice president of Technology and Innovation, DCU
Sandra Richtermeyer, Dean of the Manning School of Business, giving welcoming remarks to the crowd.
After the judge introductions, each student finalist team pitched their startup ideas. The theme of the event was to come up with innovative solutions to help solve problems related to banking and finance. After each team’s pitch, there was a Q&A by the judges. The teams that pitched were:
Big Flexers / Aiman Baig, Danny Nguyen, Haris Waqar, Abhinav Kiran, and Fazil Soharwardi
Financial Action Manager / Louis Cirignano, David Seybert
SwiftCheck / Valeria Montoya, Jennifer Phan, Veyana Thor
Cash Forward / Jack Disilvio, Oliver Jennings, Pedro Piau
CJZ Statement Analysis / Justin Yee, Christopher Novo, Elijah Li
Each of these teams were awarded $100 per team member for becoming a semi-finalist.
Valeria Montoya and Veyana Thor, team SwiftCheck, pitching their project: an app that helps users prevent overdraft fees.
After each team pitched their creative ideas and answered the judges’ questions, the judges stepped out to deliberate the winning team of the evening. While doing so, team members, faculty, students, and family grabbed more food and networked with each other.
Our judges for the evening, from left to right: Alana Tobin, Steve Schultz, Vasilios Roussos, Nancy D’Amico.
At 8 p.m., our judges finished deliberating and announced the winning team for the night: team Cash Forward! Congratulations to team Cash Forward and all teams that made it to the finals and pitched this evening! Cash Forward received $100 per team member for becoming a semi-finalist and $500 per team member for winning 1st place! Their total winning funds equaled $1,800!
