Project Olympus Announces the 2013 Fall Spark Grant Award Winners-Project Olympus - Carnegie Mellon University

Monday, December 9, 2013

Project Olympus Announces the 2013 Fall Spark Grant Award Winners

Five PROBE Projects were awarded a $3,000 dollar micro-grant from the Spark Grant Fundand one was awarded $8000* due to an alumni donor-directed contribution.

Avyayah Technologies— Customized “Ristcall” bands for connecting patients and nurses to capture ‘quality of care’, ‘patient safety’, and ‘patient satisfaction’ in health care.

People Prop—A brace used to physically support persons who do not have the capability of maintaining an upright and aligned posture while seated such as patients with Parkinson’s disease.

Piecemaker—Integrated 3D technology to offer a factory-in-a-store experience so retail stores can create low-cost, customized products in-house and on-demand.

Premier Distributors—Online retailer of imported consumer goods.

SitWith—A social dining platform service that brings together four previously unrelated people over a meal, removing the pressures of meeting someone new which allows for relaxed, meaningful conversation.

Approach.IO * – A community driven web/mobile application that helps entrepreneurs acquire their first hundred users and achieve the network effect inside of their app.

Congratulations to All Our Student Entrepreneurs and Team Members!

Approach.IO
Todd Medema, Founder | Tepper 2014

Avyayah Technologies
•Srinath Vaddepally, Founder and CEO | E&TIM’12 and ECE’13
•Shobhit Kukreti,Technology Consultant | ECE’14
•Spurthi Gundoji, Technology Consultant | ECE’14
•Sreeram Kurrup, roduct Management Consultant |E&TIM’12

People Prop
•Courtney Williamson | Tepper | PhD, 2015

Piecemaker
•Arden Rosenblatt, CEO/Co-Founder | CIT dual-MS E&TIM/MEng 2014
•Alejandro Sklar, CTO/Co-Founder | CIT, dual-MS E&TIM/ECE 2014
•Shantanu Chakraborty, Application Developer| CIT, MS ESTP 2012
 
Premier Distributors
•Rob Reynolds | Dietrich | BA, 2017  

SitWith
•William Lutz | Tepper School of Business | MBA Candidate, 2015
•Patrick Morse | University of California: Riverside | PhD candidate in Social/Personality Psychology, 2016
•Tianyu Yang | Heinz College | Master of Information System Management Candidate, 2015

The Olympus Spark Grant Fund [.pdf] helps students kick-start their business ideas.

The Olympus Spark Grant fund is funded by charitable gifts from alumni and other community donors. Students submit proposals and practice 'pitching' the donors. Donors play a vital role in helping Olympus evaluate the students' applications and making award decisions.  This is an ongoing grant fund where donors can begin their participation at any time.  See www.cmu.edu/olympus/support-olympus.html.