![\"\"](\"http:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/business-competition-winners-by-Bob.jpg\")
<\/a>Winning the College of Business and Innovation’s Business Innovation Competition and $10,000 were members of the SpecuLIFT Team, from left, Michael Peachock, Rachel Wagner, Andrew Oehrtman, Mark Caris, Melissa Brodsky, and Dr. Ronald Fournier, professor of bioengineering and team adviser. The team posed for a photo with Dr. Sonny Ariss, professor and chair of the Department of Management.<\/p><\/div>The winning team \u2014 Michael Peachock, Rachel Wagner, Andrew Oehrtman, Mark Caris and Melissa Brodsky \u2014 all met in the College of Engineering, are all bioengineering majors, and have remained close friends through their shared five-year educational journey. Their competition idea submission, developed for their engineering senior design project, was for a Novel Vaginal Speculum, a medical diagnostic device for which they are pursuing a patent.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe started with about 50 different ideas for our senior design engineering project,\u201d Wagner said. \u201cMelissa and I worked on research. My sister works in the health-care field, and current specula are uncomfortable. Our team member, Michael, is a business minor and gave us a lot of insight into developing our business plan.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cSince our major is bioengineering, we saw that it has good market potential,\u201d Caris said, \u201cso it was one of our top three ideas. The device is used by gynecologists for a pelvic exam, and a likely scenario for our device would be in an emergency room setting. Our goal was to maximize patient comfort with functionality.\u201d <\/p>\n
Caris added, \u201cWe all met in engineering and have known each other for five years. They are all great people, and we are great friends.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brodsky said, \u201cThe $10,000 prize will enable us to do more prototyping, such as a version that has a light source. Entering the business plan competition was a very eye-opening experience.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are willing to support you, to provide free advice about how to spend, where to spend and when not to spend,\u201d advised Dr. Sonny Ariss, professor and chair of the Department of Management in the College of Business and Innovation. \u201cStatistically, you have a 5 percent chance of success, and I\u2019m telling you this so you will be diligent not to fail. Your prize money is a major leap. Don\u2019t underestimate yourself. Surround yourself with a great advisory board.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are pursuing a patent for the device and, ultimately, will need to obtain FDA approval,\u201d Caris said. \u201cI am super-excited about this and fully expect to work lots of hours. We are ready to proceed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Finishing in second place was Green Agrothermal LLC, submitted by Mohammadmatin Hanifzadeh and Dr. Dong Shik Kim, associate professor of chemical and environmental engineering, who received the $5,000 prize to develop their business. <\/p>\n
Honorable mention went to RowBot, submitted by Jeffrey Darah and Andrew Puppos.<\/p>\n
The College of Business and Innovation\u2019s business plan competition received 31 entries this year and was open to all UT faculty, staff and students.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A team of five engineering students took home the $10,000 prize in this year’s Business Innovation Competition. Read about their winning idea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,34,5,1,3,7],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45000"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45000"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45000\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45080,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45000\/revisions\/45080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}