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.

Lorna Boucher, ‘86, Manning School of Business
Chief Marketing Officer, Instinet

Cindy Conde, ‘87, ‘91 Francis College of Engineering
CEO, CondeCo

Brian Rist ‘77, Manning School of Business
President and CEO, The Smart Companies

Jack M. Wilson
President Emeritus, UMass System and Distinguished Professor of Higher Education, Emerging Technologies, and Innovation, Umass Lowell

A huge thank you to the event sponsors who made this Idea Challenge possible:

• Circle Health

• Foley and Lardner, LLP

• Kim and Brian Rist ’77, Manning School of Business

• Andrew Sutherland ’94, Manning School of Business

• Jack Wilson Endowed Presidential Entrepreneurship Award Fund

CONGRATULATIONS to the 2020 winning student teams!

Rist Campus-Wide DifferenceMaker, $7,000

(sponsored by Kim and Brian Rist, ’77, Manning School of Business)

MyGrow Fabrix

“An innovative, functional, eco-friendly textile fabric for agricultural and horticultural means.”

Team members:

~ Benjamin Chaco, Alumni, UMass Amherst, Computer Engineering
~ Justin Simone, Graduate, Community Social Psychology
~ Robert Simone

Significant Social Impact, $4,000

YPG

“Eco-friendly clinical face masks to reduce harmful waste.”

Team members:
~ Paul-Joseph Blanchard, Plastics Engineering
~ Yeaharne Hout, Finance
~ Grace Truong, Nursing

Sutherland Innovative Technology Solution, $4,000

(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.”

Team members:
~ Kyle Hamblett
~ Connor Johnston
~ Jackson Kelley, Junior, Mechanical Engineering
~ Abby McNulty, Senior, Business Administration
~ Tiffany Miller, Junior, Biomedical Engineering
~ Alyssa Mulry, Junior, Biomedical Engineering
~ Jaime Waldron, Senior, Criminal Justice

Jack M. Wilson First Product to Market, $4,000

(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.”

Team members:
~ Ka-Shing Chan, Senior, Computer Science
~ Thinh Huynh, Sophomore, Mechanical Engineering
~ Michael Mitkov, Senior, Computer Science
~ Conrad Nelson, Junior, Chemical Engineering
~ Emily Philpot, Sophomore, Mechanical Engineering
~ Tatiana Tompkins, Junior, Economics

Thank you to everyone who makes DifferenceMaker a great success!

Questions? DifferenceMaker@uml.edu

On March 5, the Rist DifferenceMaker Institute and the UMass Lowell Innovation Hub held their first 2020 DifferenceMaker High School Idea Challenge! Students from Westford Academy DECA and Nashoba Regional High School came to UMass Lowell Innovation Hub to pitch their ideas that solve problems.

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.

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:

• Tyler Cote, Co-Founder of Operation 250

• Katherine Muise, Co-Founder of Ambulatory Innovations

• Ray Hamilton, Co-Founder of invisaWear

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.

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!

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

On Tuesday, February 12, from 6-8:30 p.m. at the Saab Center, Perry Atrium, DifferenceMaker held its 7th annual Digital Federal Credit Union/Manning School of Business Innovation Contest Finals.

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

Steve Schultz – ’89, ’04, Kennedy College of Sciences and Manning School of Business

Vasilios Roussos – Director of Innovation, DCU

Alana Tobin – ’89, Manning School of Business – Senior Director, Shared Services, Hologic, Inc.

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.

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.

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!

Digital Federal Credit Union gave away $3,100 in total funds to the five pitching teams.

Thank you to everyone that attended! Huge thank you for the Digital Federal Credit Union, the Manning School of Business, and the Rist DifferenceMaker Institute for sponsoring this event.

On January 29, 2020, we held our 2020 Rist DifferenceMaker Idea Challenge Kick-Off and Idea Hack at the Saab Center, Perry Atrium from 5:30 – 7 p.m. It was a very eventful night! The space was a full house filled with students, faculty, and mentors.

The event started off with food and networking. Students and faculty were able to speak with one another about their project ideas, catch up with how their semesters are, and meet new people.

Holly Butler, Entrepreneurial Initiatives Program Director, and Steven Tello, Vice Provost, then gave opening remarks to the crowd. They explained the history & process of being a DifferenceMaker, explained the plan of events for the evening, and provided reminders to apply for the Idea Challenge and to join us at the DCU/Manning School of Business Final Competition coming up soon.

Afterwards, real-life DifferenceMaker Teams sat in a panel and answered questions that were moderated by Holly Butler, Entrepreneurial Initiatives Program Director. They spoke about how and why they got involved with DifferenceMaker, how the various workshops & mentors have helped them, and the status their startup projects currently are at. The featured teams who spoke were:

Benji Ball, 2019 Rist Campus-wide DifferenceMaker, Edward Morante, English and Education.

Ambulatory Innovations (formerly known as the CAT MAT), 2019 Honorable Mention, Katie Muise, Health Sciences.

Re-Vive, 2019 Honorable Mention, Alison Mitchell, Engineering.

Ha Pho, Entrepreneurial Initiatives Program Manager, led the Idea Hack activity and discussion. Students wrote the ideas they had on the top of their mind on white paddle boards, and shared them to the crowd. Then, students and faculty worked in teams to solidify the ideas that the students shared earlier.

After the ideas were solidified, one student representative from each team shared their idea to the crowd. This activity gave the students an opportunity to practice their pitching skills and allowed them to get feedback for their ideas.

Thank you to everyone that attended! We hope that you learned something new about DifferenceMaker from this event!

Don’t forget to apply for the 2020 Rist DifferenceMaker $50k Idea Challenge! The deadline is on February 12th.

Interested in hearing student teams pitch? Join us at the DCU/Manning School of Business Innovation Finals this February 11th!

On January 7, 2020, four Rist DifferenceMaker® student teams pitched at DECA. This event took place at Durgin Hall on South Campus at UMass Lowell. DECA prepares emerging leaders and entrepreneurs for careers in marketing, finance, hospitality and management in high schools and colleges around the globe.

High school students from neighboring schools such as Nashoba Regional High School and Tyngsborough High School, visited the UMass Lowell Campus to pitch their own entrepreneurial start-up projects that they have been working on for months. During the interlude period while the judges were tallying their votes, our Rist DifferenceMaker Teams pitched their current start-up projects and companies.

The four RIST DifferenceMaker teams that pitched were:

ETRA Lock – 2018 DifferenceMaker Idea Challenge, Honorable Mention; a $2,000 prize. ETRA Lock is a RFID device that allow users, mainly individuals with physical limitations, to autonomously lock and unlock their doors by proximity.

Mass Heartbeat –   2018 DifferenceMaker Idea Challenge, Contribution to a Healthier Lifestyle winner; a $4,500 prize. Mass Heartbeat conducts heart screenings that detect underlying conditions that people may not be aware of, and is brought in an affordable manner to schools across Massachusetts

RE-VIVE – 2019 DifferenceMaker Idea Challenge, Honorable Mention; a $2,000 prize. RE-VIVE is a wearable auto-injection system to administer Naloxone to those suffering from a drug overdose.

VotED – 2019 DifferenceMaker Idea Challenge winner, Significant Social Impact winner; a $4,500 prize. VotED is a voter education app that makes learning about current politics simple, fast, and easy.

After all the teams pitched their start-ups, the young entrepreneurs in the audience were asked to vote for their favorite teams using PollEverywhere on their phones. Mass Heartbeat won first place with a top prize of $600, RE-VIVE came in second with a prize of $450, VotED won third and received $250, and ETRALock came in fourth place with a prize of $150.

Congratulations to all teams that pitched! Congratulations to all students that participated in DECA and pitched their own projects earlier that day!

On Wednesday, December 4th, 2019, 24 student teams went to the Saab Center, Perry Atrium, to pitch their prototypes to judges and the public. This was the 6th Annual Francis College of Engineering Prototyping Competition!

From 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., each team demonstrated their working prototype with a three-minute presentation to a panel of preliminary judges. They were judged based on practicality, creativity, market ability, cost-effectiveness, and presentation. This event was also open to the public, where family, student peers, and visitors could also see the pitches and vote for their favorite teams

We would like to extend a big thank you to all of the Preliminary judges:

Doug Browne ’85, Francis College of Engineering

Cindy Conde ’87, ’91, Francis College of Engineering

Steve Geyster ’83, Francis College of Engineering

Paul Makris ’91, Francis College of Engineering

Mike Mulligan ’85, Francis College of Engineering

Rich Rosetti ’83, Francis College of Engineering

Rob Sullivan ’88, ’93, Francis College of Engineering

William (Bill) Perciballi ’85, Francis College of Engineering

From 6 p.m to 7 p.m, the judges deliberated. Three teams were selected by the judges to move to the final round. And, the People’s Choice Award team also moved to the final round.

After the deliberation, the teams that were moving on to the final competition were announced. They presented their proposal to a panel of alumni judges. Each team had ten minutes for their presentations and five minutes for questions. A huge thank you to the final judges:

Rajia Abdelaziz ’16, Francis College of Engineering and Kennedy College of Sciences

Chad LeFrance ’88, Francis College of Engineering

Chris McKenna ’89 Francis College of Engineering

Mark Saab ’81 ’13 (H) Francis College of Engineering

After the presentation pitches, judges went to a separate room to deliberate for who won the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place awards. The People’s Choice Award vote from the individual pitches earlier were also counted.

First prize – $2,500 – Concussion Sensor – A mouth guard with sensor to detect concussion while athletics play in the field.

Second prize – $1,500 – The Smart Safety Outlet – An outlet that interfaces with an app to permit only the authorized person to use electrical appliances in home and workplace.

Third prize – $1,000 – Stand-Assist Belt – A new design of the traditional gait belt to reduce injuries by providing back and under buttock support to assist nurses helping patients to stand.

Med Device prize – $1,500 – The C.A.T. Mat – A physical therapy mat that simulates walking outdoors, helps treat a multitude of patients to improve balance, stability, and other impairments they may have.

Fan favorite – $500 – Use App – An app to help people recycle single use materials.

Honorable mention – team OTDSEES – A device that can assist disable athletes, SCUBA divers, trades people, and homeowners with transferring heavy items, equipment, or people over uneven and rough terrain.

Congratulations to all teams, and thank you to all the judges, audience members, and Francis College of Engineering! If you’re interested in winning additional funding and resources, please apply to the Rist DifferenceMaker $50K Idea Challenge from now until Feb. 12th.