The second round of the 2022 Michigan Business Challenge (MBC) was held December 3, via Zoom, at the Ross School of Business. Over thirty student entrepreneurs pitched their venture ideas for a chance to advance in the annual campus-wide business plan competition.
Hosted by the Zell Lurie Institute at Michigan Ross, MBC is a business plan competition designed to guide student entrepreneurs through the entire cycle of new venture creation, from delivering a strong pitch to writing a comprehensive plan. After great deliberation, panels of expert judges selected the following teams to advance in three separate tracks:
2022 MBC Seigle Impact Track Semi-Finalist Teams
Clear Computing – Clear Computing helps older adults learn their devices to better their quality of life and extend their independence. James Giordani, MSW ’22
finding joi – finding joi supports Black women in centering their well-being in their professional and academic success through access to physical and digital mental-health resources. Joi James, MBA ’23
Founder – We provide an end-to-end investment and fundraising platform that seeks to educate investors and provide founders with initial capital through crowdfunding. Ariel Cruz, MBA 22
Great Quality Development – Great Quality Development is a social-impact driven mixed-use development company that specializes in integrative models that increase affordable housing, homeownership, and community resources in Detroit, MI. Hattie McKinney, JD ’22
Plucky Comics – Plucky Comics is an educational tool that tells the stories of Black Queer historical figures through the medium of sequential art. Nathan Alston, MBA ’22 & Daniella Gennaro MBA/MA in Educational Studies ’22
PPD – The PPD Project is a pipeline for professionals with disabilities to grow personally and professionally through empowered and autonomous visioning, action, and skill growth. Kayla Rothstein, BBA ’24
Seconds Labs – We transform a byproduct of coffee farming into a novel, performance-boosting beverage for the health-conscious consumer. Austin Clowes, MBA ’22; Matthew Baker MBA ’22; Claire Bissa MBA ’22
Wild – All-in-one online destination for end-of-life and after-loss planning. Maura McInerney-Rowley, MBA ’22
2022 MBC Innovation Track Semi-Finalist Teams
botnot – BotNot helps retailers increase their brand affinity and customer loyalty by prioritizing consumers over resellers and bots. Jordan Shamir, MBA ’21
BUYMYSPOT – BUYMYSPOT is an online marketplace for peer-to-peer parking. Ian Herdegen, BSI ’22 & Jacob Glick, BE ’22
Effie – Effie is an efficient and collaborative travel management platform that centralizes operational and logistical information related to group travel by acting as a one stop shop to simplify the organizing, tracking, and delivery of trip planning requirements. Danielle Eisenberg, MBA ’22 & Noy Leyb MBA ’22
Formation – An all-in-one service platform to discover professional African American hair stylists and simplify scheduling operations. Kyra Grant, MBA/MS ’22 & Alexia Sabogal MBA ’22
Green – We are an AI-driven, affiliate marketing service that recommends personalized gifts to those who want to reclaim time and improve their gift giving ability. Devlin McConnell, MBA ‘22 & Cory Cooney, MBA ‘23
Kiakia Foods – Kiakia Foods is a tech-enabled food retail platform based in Nigeria. We’re pioneering a new approach to deliver a high selection of low cost, high quality dry foods to consumers in a more convenient way that all existing channels . Aristarchus A Arowoile, MBA ’22
PARDINGTON COLLECTIVE – The PARDINGTON COLLECTIVE is a collaborative art, fashion, and lifestyle brand that brings talented minds from different creative fields together to collaborate on multimedia collections for curation, as well as for sale. Claire Pardington WMBA ’22
Phonica – Phonica is a mobile application that provides automated speech therapy for adults with speech impediments using AI. Akhil Kondepudi, BS ’22; Tejas Gumudavelly, BBA ’24 ; Rohan Kodati, BSE ’24
2022 MBC Invention Track Semi-Finalist Teams
Arbor Simulation – Arbor Simulation is a medical education company which creates high-quality medical simulations to improve medical training and improve patient outcomes. Dylan Rushton, MSE ‘21
enGARAGE – EnGARAGE builds a platform that connects all the end customers with the last-mile delivery services through a secure and seamless in-garage delivery solution, allowing packages to be delivered right into the garages of the homes with enhanced safety, security, and convenience. Peng Zhao, MBA ’22
MedVision – MedVision is a real-time healthcare inventory management system for hospitals and surgical centers. Anurag Bolneni, MSI ’22
Pryve – Providing facial recognition based smart lock solutions to homes and residential buildings. Rohit Bollampally, BBA/BS ’24 & Sukrit Gill, BS ’23
ScentKeeper – ScentKeeper is developing a portable scent camera to capture, concentrate and store scents from any object or place for long-term enjoyment of the most important smells and memories. Matthew Smith, MPH ’22
Congratulations to all of our University of Michigan entrepreneurs who are advancing to the MBC Semi-Finals! We look forward to their return on January 21, where the student startups will present to new panels of judges. Learn more about the Michigan Business Challenge on the Zell Lurie website.