News
Thursday, May 21, 2020
Researchers from CMU Are Developing Affordable Fever Screening Technologies
As COVID-19 engulfs the world, businesses are looking ahead and preparing for their reopening. Responding to industry inquiries, Yang Cai, a senior systems scientist in Carnegie Mellon University’s CyLab and the director of the Visual Intelligence Studio, is leading a team that’s developing automatic remote fever-screening technologies that can make it possible for buildings and first responders to detect fevers from a distance.
Thursday, May 14, 2020
ApertureData Awarded $225K Grant from the National Science Foundation
ApertureData, one of the CMU Swartz Center's VentureBridge Summer Accelerator teams founded by CMU alumna and CEO Vishakha Gupta, has been awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant for $225K. The grant will be used to conduct research and development (R&D) work on scaling ApertureData’s visual data management platform for enterprise scale applications.
Thursday, May 14, 2020
CMU Alumna Namrata Banerjee Becomes EIR and Director of VentureBridge Accelerator Program at the Swartz Center
CMU alumna Namrata Banerjee has become the new director of the VentureBridge program and an Entrepreneur-in-Residence with the CMU Swartz Center. Namrata is a Venture Partner with Republic, focused on early- stage investments and also serves as a startup advisor. Prior to Republic, she was a Venture Associate with AVG Basecamp Fund, an early stage industry-agnostic fund.
Wednesday, May 13, 2020
Swartz Center VentureBridge Company Announces Release of Phishing and Online Fraud Report
Co-founded by CMU alumnus Abhishek Dubey, Bolster (formerly Red Marlin), recently announced the release of its State of Phishing and Online Fraud Report (Q1-2020 COVID edition). The report includes key findings around scams, cure misinformation and COVID-19. Bolster detects phishing and fraudulent sites in real-time. The company participated in the Swartz Center's 2018 VentureBridge Accelerator program.
Tuesday, May 12, 2020
CMU's Entrepreneurship Club Visits Silicon Valley Startup Scene
A recent story published by CMU's Tepper School of Business highlights the CMU Graduate Entrepreneurship Club (GEC) Trek to Silicon Valley, which took place this past January. Twenty seven students—including this year's Swartz Fellows and Undergraduate Innovation Scholars—from across campus traveled there to meet and network with startup companies and investors. For students interested in starting a company, or even those interested in working in the startup environment, the CMU GEC brings them together to work on their ideas and learn about entrepreneurship opportunities.
Monday, May 11, 2020
AI-Powered Virtual Pet LittleMoochi Featured in Next Pittsburgh
CMU tech startup LittleMoochi, founded by Tepper School of Business MBA Summer Xia, has developed an AI-powered virtual pet that encourages children to form positive eating habits in a fun way. LittleMoochi’s AI-powered backend enables the device to recognize millions of different types of foods. When kids consume wholesome fare, they receive more points, which can be cashed in for stickers to decorate their pet’s home.
Friday, May 8, 2020
The CMU Swartz Center Announces the VentureBridge Summer 2020 Cohort
The VentureBridge Summer Accelerator is a ten-week program hosted in the San Francisco Bay Area each summer. The program is designed to create networks with mentors, customers and early-stage investors. Sessions include: Mentor matching, investor feedback, founder dinners and more. The university invests $25K in each company. Companies also receive many other in-kind services.Find out more about the new cohort.
Wednesday, May 6, 2020
Fifth Season Recognized by Fast Company for its “World Changing” Ideas
Fifth Season, a vertical farming company in Pittsburgh's Braddock neighbord that combines proprietary robotics and artificial intelligence to disrupt the country’s produce market and deliver an entirely new category of hyper-local fresh food, has been recognized with three awards for its business leadership and achievements in technology, food and innovation. The awards include Fast Company’s “World Changing Ideas" award, the National Association of Industrial and Office Property’s (NAIOP) “Best Build-to-Suit” award and Smart Business Dealmakers’s “Dealmaker of the Year” award.
Monday, May 4, 2020
Astrobotic Awarded $79.5 Million Contract to Deliver 14 NASA Payloads to the Moon
Carnegie Mellon University spinout Astrobotic proudly announced that it has been selected to develop and lead a new commercial payload service onboard the Dynetics Human Landing System (HLS). Dynetics, a wholly owned subsidiary of Leidos, was recently announced as one of three awardees by NASA to develop a new commercial lunar lander for NASA’s Artemis Program.
Friday, May 1, 2020
CMU's Swartz Center Selects Newest Cohort of Undergraduate Innovation Scholars
After an intense application process and online interviews with several CMU undergraduate students, the Swartz Center has selected the 2020-2022 cohort of Innovation Scholars. The Innovation Scholars program fosters innovation and entrepreneurship and seeks to increase the number of successful startup companies initiated by or involving Carnegie Mellon University’s undergraduate students. Innovation Scholars complete a two-year program integrating academic coursework, work experience in a startup company, networking and mentorship—given as well as received.
The new Scholars are:
- Dominique Aruede, HCII/Psych
- Honghao (Tom) Chen, CIT/ECE
- Samarth Gowda, Dietrich/Statistics
- Sanjana Jobalia, Dietrich/Statistics
- Oscar Kavanagh, Tepper
- Dorcas Lin, CFA
- Grayson Moyer, CIT/ECE
- Awa Ndiaye, Tepper
- Nadia Sustano, Tepper
- Nadina Popoviciu, Dietrich/Statistics
- Akwelle Quaye, Dietrich/Statistics
- Frank Wang, CIT/ChemE