Eighteen university teams from nine different countries showcased their innovations in a technology competition in Austin on Saturday.
The Clint W. Murchison Sr. Chair of Free Enterprise at UT hosted the Idea to Product Global Competition, an annual event designed to explore student innovations.
Universities compete for cash prizes worth $53,500 and a chance to enter the Texas Venture Labs Investment Competition. Entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and engineers evaluate participants in four categories based on the innovation and feasibility of their technology.
UT alumnus Scott Collins, the event coordinator, said UT founded the I2P Competition in 2003. Six teams competed in the first international competition and it has since expanded to include teams from other countries.
“It is interesting to see new technology and how it is evolving,” he said. “We see how these students bring it to the world and that is really neat.”
UT’s team, Digital Proctor, won second place in the Cockrell School of Engineering Global Championship.
Their project prevents cheating by profiling how students interact online, such as how they type. The program creates a profile for each user that can later be used by faculty to ensure students haven’t cheated. Midland College and Dallas Baptist University have already implemented the system, and the team is attempting to install a similar model to monitor Blackboard at UT.
Hyunji Lim, biomedical engineering graduate student, was part of the team presenting Digital Proctor.
“I’ve been watching I2P Global for the last two years and am glad to participate this year,” she said. “I2P Global is a great place to learn different technology commercialization approaches and communicate with international student entrepreneurs.”
Penn State displayed Mashavu, a telemedicine system that connects medical professionals in Kenya with local citizens. The team hopes to distribute the computer-based system in the African country to collect medical information such as body temperature and blood pressure from citizens. The information is then sent to medical professionals who will respond to the patient if needed.
The design won second place in the McCombs School of Business Global Championship.
Roma Amin, a premed junior at Penn State, said the team visited Kenya to implement the system and ran 500 patients through the four established stations. A first time participant in I2P Global, Amin said she was impressed by the outreach of the program.
“It is a great way to get social entrepreneurs from across the world together under one roof,” she said.
