Smart Drip wins business competition

By Kevin S Lin     5/16/10 7:00pm

On your mark, get set, pitch a business plan and receive a really big check. Team Smart Drip became the first team to win Rice's Undergraduates Technology Venture Challenge, the first-ever business competition aimed at Rice undergraduates held May 6. The challenge was organized by the Community of Rice Entrepreneurs, a new student organization founded by Hanszen College senior Norman Pai and Hanszen College juniors Sean Sessel and Christoph Meyer in the summer of 2009 to help promote entrepreneurship among Rice undergraduates. From the pool of 12 applicant teams, eight finalists were chosen based on their executive summaries, a short two-page paper describing the product and business plan.

Teams then had to do a live presentation in front of a panel of judges, followed by a question-and-answer session, Pai said. Teams were scored equally on their executive summary and presentation and the highest average scoring team was chosen as the winner. Prize money was awarded to the top three teams: $2,500 for first, $1,500 for second and $1,000 for third.

The winner this year was the team behind Smart Drip, a device that can be attached to an IV bag and to control the volume and drip rate of the bag. Vani Rajendran (Martel '10) led the team, which consisted of Laura Krone (Wiess '10), Jocelyn Brown (Wiess '10) and Kristin Anderson (Martel '10). Brown said the team participated in a technology commercialization class at the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business, which gave them a head start when writing their business plan. Anderson said the class helped them see their work from a new perspective.

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"As engineers, I think it's very important that you try doing business stuff, because it's a whole other side that is just as important as the device development," Anderson said. "We're all teams of engineers, so this is a very important time for us to learn how to do the business side of things."

The Smart Drip business plan would focus on the East African Community, an intergovernmental organization consisting of Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda, which have a combined population of nearly 135 million. Krone said this area had great potential for development. According to the plan, components would be assembled in Kenya and then exported to the nearby African regions.

"A lot of the challenge is having people understand that you can have a profitable venture operating in a developing world," Krone said. "A lot of people think that the only way you can make money is to sell in the United States and that's not true at all."

The runner-up to Smart Drip was Spatial Suspenders, a team that focused on developing three-dimensional, cell-culturing. Currently, the most commonly used system is a 2-dimensional system, which limits what researchers are able to analyze about the cells. Cell cultures conducted in 3-D are more accurate and are critical for normal cell growth and function. In third place was an application that allowed users to remotely control their PowerPoint presentations using gestures on the iPhone. The other two products that made the finals were Accudose, a clip that can be attached to a syringe to ensure dosing accuracy and Travelbuzz, a web start-up to help travelers plan trips by offering a clean, streamlined interface and the ability to track and view ticket prices in real time.

Sessel said he was impressed by how professional and serious all of the teams were.

"Universally, every team was presentable," Sessel said. "I even had some judges come up to me and say that they should compete in the Rice Business Plan competition, which is a much larger event."

The Rice Business Plan Competition is the primary intercollegiate business competition in the nation, which offers a total of $1 million in prize money each year.

Sessel said he first floated the idea of a business competition at a meeting last December as a flagship event for CoRE. CoRE started coordinating the event in collaboration with Rice Alliance, a nationally recognized organization for promoting entrepreneurship and technology, in the fall and started recruiting teams at the start of February.

Sessel said the Rice Technology Venture Challenge is going to be an annual competition and that he is already looking forward to next year's competition.

"What I want people to take away from this is that as undergraduates, you can start very successful technology ventures," Sessel said. "We have a lot of smart people here at Rice and a lot of great technologies.

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