MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, Mass. – A team of entrepreneurs hoping to develop a way to detect hospital-acquired infections and a second team that proposed a plan to distribute mobile phones to the poor have earned top honors in Tufts University's sixth annual business plan competition.
The two teams were among ten finalists in the competition. Five teams competed in the Classic Business Plan Competition and five competed in the Social Entrepreneurship Competition. Coordinated through the entrepreneurial leadership center at Tufts University's Gordon Institute, the two business plan competitions allow students from schools across the university to compete.
Corporate sponsors for the competitions included The Capital Network (TCN), Cummings Properties, Deloitte, Lowenstein Sandler, the National Collegiate Inventors & Innovators Alliance, Sherbrooke Capital, Skadden and Vertrue Incorporated.
Proximity Health Solutions, the winner in the Classic Business Plan category, is developing a silk-based screening device that will enable health care providers to identify and isolate people with specific hospital-acquired infections. The device is based on research led by David Kaplan, chair of biomedical engineering and Fiorenzo Omenetto, professor of biomedical engineering. Team members include Tufts senior Michael Brown along with Gordon Institute graduate students Jeffrey Miller and Bernard Tan.
The top winner in the Social Entrepreneurship competition was Masawa. The company hopes to develop online communities in Haiti and other developing countries using mobile phones. Masawa's team included Fletcher School students Shailesh Chitnis, Joshua Haynes, Darius Hyworon, Mariah Levin, Christine Martin and Julie Zollman.
Each winning team received cash awards. Proximity Health Solutions received $15,000 in cash while Masawa received $10,000. Their winnings also included in-kind services from sponsors.
About Tufts University
Tufts University, located on three Massachusetts campuses in Boston, Medford/Somerville, and Grafton, and in Talloires, France, is recognized among the premier research universities in the United States. Tufts enjoys a global reputation for academic excellence and for the preparation of students as leaders in a wide range of professions. A growing number of innovative teaching and research initiatives span all Tufts campuses, and collaboration among the faculty and students in the undergraduate, graduate and professional programs across the university's schools is widely encouraged.
