Months of work come down to a five-minute pitch for six teams of undergrads competing in UTSA's annual Student Technology Venture Competition Tuesday. The competition means money and services for a nascent business.
Though working on their biomedical device since August, UTSA senior Madeleine Farrer says they feel good about their product and their pitch. "We spent a lot of time optimizing and analyzing -- doing risk analysis and things like that," Farrer says, "We're proud of it."
Her team, Chiron Innovations, was approached by the U.S. Department of Defense with a problem. When soldiers suffer from blasts, oftentimes too little limb is left to use a regular tourniquet. A junctional one is applied. It's a belt that cuts off the blood flow of the femoral arteries. They then pack the wound with gauze and hope.
Outcomes aren't good from these types of injury.
"So we designed a device to help stop that bleeding or reduce it so that they can survive to get to a hospital. Because once they get to a hospital, their survival rate is like 92 percent," says Farrer.
The patent-pending device called "ColdClot" is just one of the technologies competing for the funding and support through the Student Venture Competition, which is through the Center for Innovation, Technology and Entrepreneurship. The $100,000 spreads among the teams, with most going to the winner, and comes in money and services like lawyers and facilities.
UTSA Chief Commercialization Officer Cory Hallam says the competition may not result in all six competitors starting businesses right away, "But we do expect to unlock the fire in their bellies that gets them excited. And you'll see three, four, five years from now our alum out there taking on a new challenge and launching a new company."
Some past winners have continued to build successful businesses. Last year's winner InfraVein was recently given $50,000 from the National Science Foundation to advance its technology, which assists medical professionals in finding veins with a headset and infrared.
