Mentoring at Start-Up UConn: Many Great Lessons Learned

Posted on 30. Jan, 2012 by in Blog, community, connecticut, entrepreneurs, innovation, Recent Company News, technology

It was great going back to college, that is being a mentor to new ideas at Start Up UConn, a national program that encourages young and energetic entrepreneurs to create a new business model over a period of 54 hours. I had the pleasure of nurturing and coaching teams of entrepreneurs in creating mostly online (web and apps) in areas that users might find useful in their daily living.

I have been mentoring for many years and this type of event shows how groups of people who many times don’t know each other with come together and collaborate for a product or service that will be judged in a 5 minute presentation.

I would give awards to all of them, but congratulations to PlatForum, Sobrio, and MailStack who tied for 1st Place at the inaugural Startup Weekend Storrs event! Honorable mention when to KidETA for most promising service to the community, and Life Raver for best name. There were very interesting ideas presented, along with the potential of new businesses being formed. Hopefully, some will be seen by you all over the next few years.

Top Winners:

PlatForum – A mobile app to consolidate the forum experience
Sobrio – A mobile match service linking party go-ers and sober drivers
Mailstack – A new way to organize your email inbox

Honorable Mention:

KidETA – A school bus location service using mobile crowdsourcing (for most promising service to the community)
Life Raver – A website to help visitors to a city find the fun things that locals do (for best name)

Other Participants:

  • Eldercare Compare
  • Busses2
  • CloudSort
  • GrowPix
  • Sitterverse
  • LiveIt!
  • Joy In A Glass

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