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Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Web learning startup takes top spot in Microsoft’s Imagine Cup
By Mass High Tech staff
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Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) held the national finals of its Imagine Cup technology competition at its Cambridge offices last week, and picked the three winning teams of students, including the grand prize winners, who will go to the world competition in Cairo.
Among the 15 competitors that gathered at the New England Research and Development Center in Cambridge was a local startup launched by Ryan Flynn, a pre-med biology student at MIT and his three teammates from Wayne State University. The company, Lifecode, is developing a complete medical information system that starts with a wearable sensor rig to determine such things as blood pressure and ends with the information being presented to health care professionals through a simple web interface.
The target market for the first iteration of the Lifecode system is pregnant women in developing countries, in an effort to reduce the infant mortality rate and improve women’s health.
Joining Flynn on the Lifecode team is Wayne State economics major and software developer Steve Markovitch, Ph.D. candidate and sensor expert Xiaohui Liu, and medical human factors major Melissa Hui.
The Imagine Cup is an international innovation competition launched six years ago by the software titan that pits teams of student inventors from around the globe against each other. The teams compete on addressing eight issues identified in the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals, such as combating AIDS and other diseases or encouraging environmental sustainability, according to Gus Weber, business development and community relations manager for Microsoft’s NERD Center, and the head of the Imagine Cup program in the U.S.
Taking the top spot was MultiPoint Web, a startup created by three Oregon brothers in college and high school. MultiPoint plans to provide a set of low- to no-cost web-based learning activities that allow multiple students to use one computer at the same time.
MultiPoint has the choice of $8,000 cash distributed among the team, or $16,000 toward an “e-team” grant from the Hadley-based National Collegiate Inventor and Innovators Alliance for further development of its project.
The first runner up was Mango Bunnies, students from DePauw University that are developing tech that supports HIV/AIDS patients with a medication regimen sent to their mobile device. They have a choice of $4,000 cash or $8,000 toward an NCIIA e-team grant. Second runner up was Special Child, made up of four grad students from the University of Arkansas-Little Rock. The startup is developing a database application that provides assistance and organization to the adoption process.
While Lifecode didn’t take any of the top money-winning spots, they aren’t discouraged, and are looking forward to the next stage, seeking grant money, and developing and testing the system on a small scale.
“I don’t think any of us want to drop this,” Markovitch said.
Article last updated May 8, 2009.
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