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Foster MBAs win second Challenge for Charity in three years
The Golden Briefcase has come home to Foster. That’s the victor’s trophy in the MBA Challenge for Charity (C4C), the annual contest between eight prominent west coast MBA programs to raise the most funds and volunteer the most hours in support of Special Olympics and local charities of each school’s choosing (for Foster, Boys & Girls Club of King County and the University District Food Bank). The challenge culminates in a sports weekend at Stanford University each spring. Foster MBAs raised $165,000 and donated more than 4,400 volunteer hours to their organizations this year. They also proved to be pretty good sports—winning gold medals in table tennis, cornhole and men’s basketball, and silvers in men’s softball, coed football, women’s volleyball, trivia, dodgeball, coed softball and men’s soccer. With this latest claim to the Golden Briefcase, Foster MBAs have won the C4C prize twice in three years, and nine times overall.
INNOVATIONS GALORE Buerk Center awards best student business, environmental and health innovations The annual UW Business Plan Competition did a little rebranding for its 22nd edition. The Dempsey Startup Competition, renamed to honor the philanthropy of venture capitalist Neal Dempsey (BA 1964), crowned HRG Infrastructure Monitoring its champion. The team from the University of Victoria won the $25K Herbert B. Jones Foundation grand prize for its drone-based diagnostic system that detects and quantifies damage to civil structures. The $10K BECU second place prize went to Adventure Game Works, a team from Gonzaga making customizable kits that turn any home or office into a liveaction, role-playing puzzle game. The $7.5K Friends of the Dempsey Startup third place prize was awarded to Bottomline, a collaboration of UW MBA and computer science students whose analytics service calculates the true value of job offers. And the $5K Fenwick & West fourth place prize went to AeroSpec, UW engineers developing a wearable air quality monitor. At the Alaska Airlines Environmental Innovation Challenge, the $15K grand prize went to MOtiF Materials, a team of UW mechanical engineers developing a more sustainable battery technology. Chibage Chip Atomo Coffee, MS Entrepreneurship students who have developed a molecular process to make coffee without coffee beans, won the $10K Herbert B. Jones Foundation second place prize. Chibage Chip, an agricultural drought gauge developed by a UW biochemist, took the $5K Port of Seattle third place prize. And ElectroSolar Oxygen, a team of UW chemical engineering and business students touting a solar-powered oxygen delivery device, won the $5K UW Clean Energy Institute Clean Energy Prize. At the Hollomon Health Innovation Challenge, Nanodropper, a team of UW pharmacology, bioengineering and medical students, won the $15K IntuitiveX grand prize for their affordable universal eye dropper. The $10K Herbert B. Jones Foundation second place prize went to Appiture, a team of WSU students developing a carmera-integrated app for early diagnosis of autism. And Pulmora, a team of UW bioengineers who developed an intuitive emergency Nanodropper ventilator, won the $5K WRF Capital third place prize.
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