Online Apparel Shopping, Media Displays, and Trackers are the future! These business ideas were the top winners at 2012 TyE Gala this past weekend.

TyE-Boston had its grand finale with the students participating in the 10K Business Plan Competition on Saturday, April 7, 2012 at the Holiday Inn Select in Woburn MA. Eight outstanding teams Aurora, Enlighten, Medicia, MedTech, Productions 3D, Reperio, TutorConnect, and Yolo spanned diverse sectors like Education, Healthcare, Cleantech, and Technology.

Productions 3D, creator of SharpFit, a pioneering tool which uses the Xbox 360 Kinect Sensor to create profiles to help consumers accurately receive fittings for apparel from their home, won the 1st prize of $5K. This all boys team of high school students included Govind Srivastav, CEO; Siddharth Annaldasula, CFO; Soham Kudtarkar, CTO; Aneesh Heintz, COO; and Rasheed Raziuddin, CMO.

2nd place went to Enlighten, producers of a pico projector with better picture and audio quality, who won $3K.

And 3rd place went to Reperio, a unique and affordable solution to locate misplaced items using RFID tracking technology, which won $2K.

The teams presented their business plans to a panel of distinguished judges including Ajit Kambil, Global Research Director: CFO Program, Deloitte; Bryan McCorry, Senior Audit Manager, KPMG- New England Venture Capital Practice; Gaugarin Oliver, CEO, RedEgg Solutions, Inc; and Rama Ramakrishnan, Founder and CEO, CQuotient; and Satish Tadikonda, Founder, President & CEO of Virtify.

The highlight of the event was the inspirational Keynote from Pedro T. Santos, Founder and CEO of OsComp Systems. As he spoke of the highs and lows of his life and entrepreneurial journey, he kept the mood humorous yet realistic offering advice to the students along the way. The two key take-aways for the students were to continue to focus on their studies because it will build the skills they need for the future and that “not winning today is the 1st step in that long road” to success. Pedro ended with an analogy between entrepreneurship and the marathon that we should all keep in mind: “No one wins their 1st marathon. When you start, there are a lot of other competitors who are very qualified and have been training for a very long time and will most likely win. But if you keep trying every time work hard and train again and go to the next one. Eventually you will win one.”

The TyE program was adopted by TiE-Global in 2009 and is now offered to other TiE chapters. This year, 20 TiE chapters from around the world are running a TyE Program. The 3rd TyE 25K Global Business Plan Competition is being held on April 26, 2012 in Atlanta, Georgia. Team Productions 3D from TyE-Boston and winning teams from 20 other chapters will participate and present their business plans.

TyE or TiE Young Entrepreneurs is TiE-Boston’s signature program for high school students with a mission to excite young people to discover the rewards and challenges of becoming entrepreneurs and business leaders. This program introduces entrepreneurship and business to students improving their self confidence and developing leadership skills and capabilities.

Since the inception of TyE in 2005, over 240 students have participated in the program from over 25 local schools in New England. This year, over 40 high school students spent Saturday mornings learning what it means to be an entrepreneur.  

We thank our sponsors and the organizing committee members for their hard work and support in making this event a grand success. TyE aims to become world's leading entrepreneurial program for the youth that provides an environment for young people to fulfill their dream of becoming entrepreneurs and business leaders.

The eight finalists for the competition were:

Aurora:  Solar Blinds
Aurora is a privately owned manufacturing company, pioneering a groundbreaking solution to the worldwide dilemma of energy consumption through the use of unique solar technology.  Our revolutionary solar blinds create enough energy to allow the business' cost to break-even in just five years.

Team: Aishwarya Bhadouria, Mrudula Gadgil, Vignesh Mohankumar, Yamin Nambiar

EnLighten Coporation:  Share and display your media
EnLighten Coporation provides customers with the ability to share and display media files efficiently. Spark, the product, is a pico projector that allows viewing of images and videos for prolonged periods of time. Small enough to fit into your pocket, Spark can produce a brighter picture and clearer audio quality.

Team: Chirantan Neogy, Naveen Ram, Prakhar Sahay, Rupayan Neogy, Sonal Sharda

Medicia: Bacteria Scanner
Medicia is a company that provides a product that helps check for contamination in hospitals, the EctoScan. The EctoScan is a portable, efficient, and reliable scanner that helps detect bacterial contamination on a surface by combining a digital camera and light microscopy.

Team: Ankansha Nalatwad, Alay Patel, Anjana Shenoy, Ruchira Parikh, Shivangi Pandey.

MedTech:  Medical Appointment Booking
MedTech is a medical platform service that helps patients book, change and cancel appointments with their doctors. Our product is geared to help patients more efficiently and easily book appointments whenever and wherever they want to.

Team: Abhiram Rao, Alisha Parikh, Erin Moore, Prashanth Veeragandham, Sanjay Batchu, Akshay Daftadar

Productions3D: Hassle-free online apparel shopping
Apparel shopping is one of the most untapped online markets. Productions 3D’s product, SharpFit, is revolutionizing the shopping experience by transforming how consumers shop for apparel online. SharpFit is a pioneering tool which uses the Xbox 360 Kinect Sensor to create their profile/avatar. This allows the consumers to accurately receive fittings for their clothes right from their home.
 
Team: Govind Srivastav, Rasheed Raziuddin, Siddharth Annaldasula, Soham Kudtarkar, Aneesh Heintz.

Reperio: Revolutionizing the way in which items are located
Reperio has come up with a very unique and affordable solution using proven RF-ID tracking technology integrated with smart phone application to track misplaced items quickly and easily.

Team: Elisha Shah, Kunal Shah, Rishi Kachrani, Samarth Desai, Shefali Mangtani

TutorConnect:  Peer tutoring made easy
TutorConnect is an online technology platform that organizes peer tutoring in schools and provides flexibility for tutors and tutees to connect anytime, anywhere.

Team: Janani Baskaran, Lahari Venugthurupalli, Medha Hiremath, Sandhya Reddy,  Vinutna Veeraandham, Poonam Kamdar

YOLO: You Only Learn Once
YOLO will enhance, engage, and personalize education for each student through seamless technology that is guaranteed to provide them with the best education possible.

Team: Divya Agarwal, Omkar Bhat, Raj Patil, Saalik Lokhandwala

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