Thursday, May 15, 2008

MIT $100K judges pick Diagnostic-For-All

Diagnostic-For-All has won the MIT $100K Business Plan Competition, according to the school.

The nonprofit, an entrant in the biotechnology track, delivers affordable point-of-care diagnostic solutions in developing countries. The team's plan is based on patent-pending technology developed in chemist George Whitesides' laboratory at Harvard University. The tools are intended to be simple, portable, low-cost, and able to diagnose liver, kidney and metabolic diseases.

Diagnostic-For-All presented to a panel of judges including Gururaj "Desh" Deshpande, co-founder and chairman of Sycamore Networks Inc., and Robert Metcalfe, of Polaris Ventures.

The initial field of 232 entrants competed in seven categories. The category winners are:

• Astro/aerospace: IntAct Labs
• Biotechnology: Diagnostic-For-All
• Development: Click Diagnostics
• Energy: Covalent Solar
• Mobile: Ubitrack
• Products and services: MyFaktory
• Web 2.0 IT: CyberAnalytix

This year's ceremony also included a live elevator pitch contest, voted on by the audience. The crowd voted using their mobile phones with technology from $100K mobile semi-finalist team Poll Everywhere. Covalent Solar, whose product is an MIT-invented solar concentrator photovoltaic technology, won the $10,000 prize.