On May 26, the von Liebig Entrepreneurism Center successfully completed its third year and seventh Cohort as an NSF I-Corps site. To celebrate, the Center threw a reception for all the students, faculty, and mentors who have participated, ending the night with presentations from Spring Quarter’s 12 teams. During the final presentations, teams presented their ideas, target markets, and lessons learned from customer interviews conducted throughout the quarter.

Each of the mentors ranked the presenting teams categories of progress throughout the program, as well as quality of presentations. Each and every mentor believes that the teams have developed significantly from their initial idea pitches to their final presentations.

For example, the idea for Catalyst Technologies was initially developed in India.  Through customer discovery and market research, Lenord Melvix, the Entrepreneurial Lead, pivoted his focus from Indian to small American hydroponic farmers who were interested in seeing how his solutions could significantly cut their operation costs.

Dr. Seth Alexander of GenTag Solutions identified that designing multiple "all-in-one kits" that allow technicians to tag and capture RNA are much more useful and potentially profitable than his initial offering of a "do-it-yourself" method for clinical and academic researchers. He was able to gather this crucial information through the customer discovery process, an important tactic taught by mentors at the Center.

Armando Armillo of Saros created unique 3D Printers for community maker spaces and individual hobbyists. Through the customer discovery process,  these customer segments revealed the need for a niche quality of 3D printing between high-cost industry grade and the slower, lower-cost consumer grade 3D printing.

Saharnaz Baghdadchi of Singular Imaging, a team from the Phase II group, is developing a single-pixel imaging microscope that reduces the time and cost of stem cell tissue sample processing.  Through customer discovery, researchers confirmed that a beneficial application of the microscope is its high-definition quality, providing images of greater depth for brain imaging research.

Over the past three years, the von Liebig Center (vLC) has trained approximately 100 teams (250 student and faculty participants) in the process of starting a company using the customer discovery process and lean startup methodology.  The two-phase program has resulted in over 2,780 customer interviews conducted, and 19 teams have since filed patents, 44 teams have created prototypes, and 9 teams have gone to the NSF I-Corps Teams (National) program.

According to a survey sent out to the teams, participants revealed that the best part of the (vLC) I-Corps program was the focus on mentor relationships, the cultivation of the entrepreneurial mindset, the understanding the customer discovery process, and enhanced presentation skills.

“The best part of the I-Corps program was going through the process of determining the value of your technology,” says Dustin Fraley of the HeatSeq project. “Great framework for developing a business plan and justifying why your technology is needed through potential user interviews,” Fraley said, commenting that it was an invaluable experience.

Beyond commercialization of technology, the von Liebig Center also hopes to impart and encourage an entrepreneurial mindset in students, faculty, and staff that will help in job searches, identifying other areas of research that are translatable, and writing more competitive grant proposals. This is in line with the vision of Don Millard, the Deputy Division Director of the Engineering Education and Centers (EEC) Division at the National Science Foundation. Millard has held this philosophy since the NSF I-Corps program was founded. Millard attended the Institute of the Global Entrepreneur launch on June 2nd and met with the Center about the strong outcomes UC San Diego’s NSF I-Corps site has produced.

“The best thing I learned was entrepreneur-like thinking. I'm currently looking into other potentially translatable technologies in my lab with the mindset imparted to me by the I-Corps program,” says Wangzhong Sheng, from the AMDepot project.

The NSF I-Corps program will be offered again in Fall 2016. Applications are open and teams will be selected in September. Click here to apply!

As a tribute to the success of NSF von Liebig Center, 5 out of the 8 finalists in the UCSD Entrepreneur Challenge -- NanoVR, Pain Measurement Technologies, Clip Diagnostics, Locana, and Genrix – had participated in the vLC I-Corps program and were awarded funds towards their projects by placing in the top 3 of their track.

Read more about the winners here, and take a look through Priya Bisarya’s experience here. 

Engineering World Health Hosts HealthHack 2016

The UC San Diego chapter of Engineering World Health held its second annual HealthHack February 27-28, garnering over 110 students of varied engineering and health science majors to produce a prototype or design to solve a serious global health problem.

The teams, comprised of up to four people, were given the following challenge: “To diagnose, limit, prevent, or treat a mental condition and its associated problems. Empower a patient to curb dependence on inaccessible resources, specifically in a low-resource setting.”

Neel Parekh, President Project Team for EWH, described what generated the prompt for HealthHack was what he sees as a significant need.

“I guess the simple answer is that mental health solutions are just not represented well in the engineering community,” Parekh said. “Engineers often focus on infectious and chronic diseases, but tend to give up when it comes to mental health. I also researched the [statistics] and felt bad myself for kind of not contributing to that realm enough, and [I] decided to pursue it further until I realized that there could be some really interesting engineering solutions to these mental health issues.”

According to the World Health Organization, countries with low and lower middle incomes carry almost three-quarters of neuropsychiatric disorders worldwide. Almost one-third of countries do not have a defined budget for mental health. Even more so, roughly 21 percent of countries that do have specific mental health budgets provide less than 1 percent of their total health budget on mental health.

The competition consisted of 27 hours of hacking, with the aid of graduate student, faculty, and industry mentors. Additionally, all participants had Arduinos and access to the MAE Design Studio at their disposal, in addition to workshops on 3D Printing and Hardware. Teams had to submit a written proposal, outlining the current need for the prototype or device, explanation of the solution, process for implementation, and any limitations and potential collaborations.

The first round of judging was a project expo, in which the 23 teams that submitted final proposals delivered 3-minute pitches to judges from academia and industry. Six finalists were selected for the last round. After a keynote speech from Illumina representative Adrian Fawcett, each team gave an 8-minute presentation before a panel of judges, including representatives from ResMed, the von Liebig Entrepreneurism Center and UC San Diego. 

Prototypes and designs included:

• Hidden watch for anxiety and epilepsy
• Wearable headband to aid narcolepsy patients 
• Mobile game for individuals affected by autism spectrum disorder
• Whole cell biosensor for a holistic approach to depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety and ADHD
• Stuffed animals to comfort those suffering from depression 
• Mobile app that tracks diet and physical health to improve awareness and self-diagnosis of depression, schizophrenia, obsessive compulsive and bipolar disorders
• Aid for refugees suffering from PTSD
• Focus on maternal stress and cortisol levels 
• Isolation prevention for the mentally distressed  
• Game that improves independence for the depressed, without having the affected realize the game is for treatment
• Application of radio frequency to provide diagnostic information for PTSD patients 
• Aid for the chronically homeless affected by mental and behavioral disorders
• Game for young adults suffering from depression 

Finalists

Third Place: PEN

Rodolfo Flores, Applied Mathematics, ‘18

Alfredo Lucas, Bioengineering: Bioengineering ‘18

Gustavo Umbelino, Computer Science, ’18

Focused on ADHD, in particular students who easily fall under in-class distractions, the team developed a Stimulating Pen that sends constant reminders to the users through vibrations and visual cues. The device also has a component for anxiety relief that allows the user to continuously press the button on the pen’s top, similarly to clicking a pen nonstop. The incidence of ADHD is higher amongst impoverished individuals, correlating income with the disease’s prevalence.

Second Place: Calm Cap

Neha Chhugani, Bioengineering: Biosystems, ‘19

Anokhi Saklecha, Biochemistry and Cell Biology, ‘19

Renu Singh, Bioengineering: Bioinformatics, ‘18

Vaish Sridharan, Bioengineering: Bioengineering, ‘19

These four girls were awarded $500 in prize money for their $5 wearable head device that alleviates anxiety, the most prevalent neuropsychiatric disorder worldwide. The device utilizes acupressure beads at acupressure points GV 24.5 and GV 20, cerebral regions that the International Anesethesia Research Study reports to correlate with stress relief. In addition, the device includes a battery-operated sound chip that plays calming music or meditation instructions and a microprocessor that records frequencies and durations of panic attacks. Calm Cap is worn at patient’s discretions, such that they may put on the device when they feel a panic attack approaching, and they may do so without any additional aid.

First Place: Amniotic Wrap

Niranjanaa Jeeva, Bioengineering: Bioengineering, ‘19

Ella Stimson, Bioengineering: Bioengineering, ‘19

Julie Yip, Bioengineering: Biotechnology, ’18

                                   

With the prize money of $1000, the team looks forward to collaborating with the von Liebig Entrepreneurism Center to further develop their prototype. The team was focused on Postpartum Depression, a disorder that affects 15 percent of mothers after giving birth, and this condition affects almost twice as many women in underdeveloped countries in comparison to industrialized countries.

One of the symptoms of PPD is difficulty bonding with the infant, thus, the team created a blanket that connects mother to child. The baby has a small sock with Lilypad Arduinos and infrared sensors, which detect the baby’s pulse and therefore its heart rate. This heart rate is sent via Bluetooth the mother’s blanket, which has Lilypad Arduinos and vibrational motors that mimic the baby’s heart beat. A study at the Eindhoven University of Technology revealed that biosignals of an individual’s heart beat can form an intimate connection and interpersonal distance with another person. In addition, the changes in the infant’s heart rate will be analyzed to gently awaken and notify the mother, before hearing the cries of her child. Estimated at $12 in cost, the design strengthens the mother-infant bond and has potential to relieve other symptoms of PPD, allowing the mother to independently improve her health in the comfort of her home.

First year Bioengineering student Niranjanaa Jeeva expressed her surprise, noting her attendance was derived in her hope to develop more engineering skills, and she noted how competing was a humbling experience.

“HealthHack was definitely an exciting experience!” Jeeva told the Jacobs School. “I went into it hoping to learn a few engineering skills, maybe create a viable idea to present at the end of the weekend. As a first year, I believed that there was really no way that I could win. Luckily, I was part of a great team. Together, we worked hard through many frustrating hours to come up with our idea and had a great time doing it. Maybe it was because I was so exhausted by the end of the second day, but I was so surprised when we won. All the other teams who competed had such amazing ideas. I am so grateful for the chance to have met and competed with such creative and innovative people!”

Ella Stimson, also a first year Bioengineering student of Amniotic Wrap, described how the event has encouraged her to further pursue engineering for improved quality of life and global health.

“Initially, I joined for the experience and not so much for the competition itself,” Stimson said. “This mindset continued until our group found a topic and design idea that all of us were passionate about,” Stimson said. “I’m thrilled that our enthusiasm was reflected in our product and supported by others. This competition made me realize that there are so many areas of our world’s health that is lacking resources and help and it amazes me that just 24 hours of designing and hacking can make an impact in that - whether it’s our group or any of the other groups’ idea. Now, I really want to make sure that our idea gets out there in the world and makes some kind of difference.”

As for the future of HealthHack competition, Parekh said to the Jacobs School, “I just want the idea that engineers can contribute to global health to continue to prosper and…have the UCSD community of engineering, including professors, entrepreneurship, and administration, to understand that they should be conducive to students that can come up with really amazing things.”

UC San Diego Startup Invited to First-Ever White House Demo Day

Cocoon Cam

Wearless Tech, Inc., a San Francisco/San Diego startup with its roots in the University of California, San Diego’s Computer Science and Engineering department, was invited to showcase their first product – a wellness video baby monitor – in the first-ever White House Demo Day on August 4, 2015. The event was hosted by President Obama and brought in innovators from across the country, including the co-founders of Wearless Tech, Rubi Sanchez, Siva Nattamai, and UC San Diego computer science alumnus Pavan Kumar Pavagada Nagaraja, MS ‘15.

Nattamai and Sanchez first met at a hackathon where they had the idea for a baby monitor that could detect a baby’s heartbeat without any wearable sensors attached. After interviewing a number of parents, the pair realized that the need was greater – a monitor that can non-invasively detect the baby’s heart rate, respiration and temperature and then send an alert when something isn’t right. That’s when UC San Diego computer science and engineering graduate student Pavan Kumar, now an alumnus and currently employed as researcher in the Computer Science and Engineering Department, joined the team as a software developer. Together, the three co-founded Wearless Tech, Inc. and began work on what would become their first product – Cocoon Cam.

“Cocoon Cam is unique in that it is completely non-invasive,” said Kumar. “The hardware consists of a video camera with a passive infrared sensor, meaning that unlike other technologies, no microwaves are emitted. Instead, it gathers data from the camera and sends it to the cloud, where software analyzes the video.”

Using the latest advances in computer vision, machine learning, and Infrared (IR), Cocoon Cam is able to detect a baby's presence and positioning, making it the first video baby monitor that can transmit live information about a baby's safety and activity without invasive wearable technology

Once it receives the video feed, the software amplifies and quantifies the color changes in the baby’s skin and the movement of the baby’s chest. From there, a notification is sent to the parents’ smartphone app alerting them to changes in the baby’s heart rate, respiration and temperature.

Cocoon Cam can be pre-ordered beginning in October.

Wearless Tech is currently continuing its collaboration with UC San Diego and Weibel to conduct field patient studies in both clinical and in-home environments. In the future, the company plans to develop intelligent video camera systems that provide continuous, non-contact and non-invasive vital sign monitoring for Neonatal and Pediatric Intensive Care Units (NICUs/PICUs) and Emergency Rooms (ERs). The technology promises to reduce false alarms and alarm fatigue in critical care environments, and the team plans to test its efficacy through an NSF grant for which they applied in collaboration with UC San Diego’s Computer Science and Engineering and Pediatrics departments in early summer 2015. Other areas under development include post-surgery and eldercare monitoring as well as enhanced screening for security applications.

Interested in supporting Cocoon Cam? Visit https://www.cocooncam.com.

Read about Wearless Tech's journey to the White House here.

UC San Diego Student Takes on Challenge: Making Graphene for the Market

UC San Diego NanoEngineering Ph.D. candidate 
Aliaksandr (Alex) Zaretski

A University of California, San Diego graduate student has found a way to use mass-produce graphene, an allotrope of carbon that is one atom-thick – and his technology is getting noticed by investors and venture capital firms.

The large-scale graphene can be used for applications such as flexible electronics and water desalination membranes.

“Graphene is more conductive than any metal we know of and it’s 200 times stronger than steel because of the way the atoms bond to form a hexagonal pattern (think of chicken wire) with a cloud of free electrons hovering above and below it,” said UC San Diego NanoEngineering Ph.D. candidate Aliaksandr (Alex) Zaretski.

According to Zaretski,no one has been able to produce graphene on a large-enough scale for industrial applications. 

There are ways to do it – graphene can be grown on a copper substrate and pried off, but only after a few hours in an acid bath.

As an intern at Cornell University under the mentorship of graphene expert Paul McEuen, Zaretski had an idea. What if graphene could be liberated from its substrate by overcoming the adhesion strength with a greater force?

Determined to pursue this research project, Zaretski arrived at UC San Diego as a NanoEngineering master’s student. Under the supervision of Darren Lipomi, professor of NanoEngineering, Zaretski developed a method in which graphene is grown on a copper substrate and overlaid with a sheet of nickel. Because graphene adheres better to nickel than to copper, the entire graphene single-layer can be easily removed and remains intact over large areas.

“The layer of nickel still needs to be removed using an acid bath, but it takes only a few seconds, rather than a few hours,” said Zaretski. “This method is much more cost effective and time efficient for mass production.”

“Once I had enough evidence that my idea was feasible, I began looking for help to commercialize my technology,” said Zaretski. “I was interning at the Torrey Pines Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) at the time, and one of the senior scientists recommended that I participate in a pitch competition called the UC San Diego Entrepreneur Challenge. That was really the beginning.”

At that time, Zaretski was looking to transfer into the nanonengineering Ph.D. program at UC San Diego. He joined Lipomi’s lab, where he was encouraged to explore his ideas.

"Alex is full of creativity," said Lipomi. "He is the kind of student a faculty member encounters only rarely in his or her career. I have been happy to support Alex's research and entrepreneurship, and his is the first startup originating from our laboratory."

Zaretski founded GrollTex, a company that seeks to commercialize a new method of fabricating large-area single-atom monolayer sheets of transparent graphene.

After winning the UC San Diego Entrepreneurship Challenge, Zaretski caught the attention of Rosibel Ochoa, Senior Executive Director, Entrepreneurism and Leadership Programs at the Jacobs School of Engineering, who suggested he apply to the Southern California Clean Energy Technology Acceleration Program at the von Liebig Center for Entrepreneurism.

“It was a really eye-opening experience,” said Zaretski. “I not only had great peers in the program, I also had great mentors who propelled my business idea to the state of a viable high-tech startup”

With the funding he received through the program and the Entrepreneurship Challenge, combined with research funding from Lipomi, Zaretski was able to purchase a reactor to grow graphene on copper and demonstrate a new method of transferring it to flexible substrates. Last year, among several other graduate students from the Jacobs School of Engineering, Zaretski was awarded the prestigious three-year National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship to further his graphene related research.

Things took off – Zaretski and Lipomi patented the technology through UC San Diego’s Technology Transfer Office and obtained an exclusive license. From there, he went on to form a core team by hiring a CEO – Jeff Draa, President of Tech Coast Angels. Grolltex has also received pre-seed investment from the UC San Diego affiliated Triton Technology Fund.

GrollTex wins first prize California Dreamin’ Competition

Aliaksandr (Alex) Zaretski at Chapman University’s 4^th 
Annual California Dreamin’ Business Plan Competition in April

Zaretski’s startup took home $25,000 and first prize at Chapman University’s 4^th Annual California Dreamin’ Business Plan Competition in April.

An invitation-only event, California Dreamin’ is a nationwide entrepreneurially-focused higher education competition. This year’s competition took place April 24-25, 2015 at Chapman University’s campus in Orange, CA. It featured 28 schools competing for prize money and potential equity investment, along with connections to venture capital firms.

GrollTex beat out 27 other companies showcasing everything from smartphone apps to new drugs for the top spot in the competition.

The future of GrollTex

After representing UC San Diego in Chapman University’s 4^th Annual California Dreamin’ Business Plan Competition, Zaretski hopes to continue networking with the potential investors and venture capital firms that were in attendance.

“We’re currently talking with companies about lab space and strategic partnerships,” said Zaretski.

Zaretski says none of this would be possible if it weren’t for the unique culture at UC San Diego that fosters entrepreneurship.

“That’s one of the reasons I chose UC San Diego,” said Zaretski. “I wanted to go to a graduate school where my ideas would not only be accepted, but embraced and nurtured. It’s because of programs and centers such as von Liebig and mentors such as Rosibel Ochoa that GrollTex has come this far.”