Competing Teams

Makr Papr

4 team members
2nd Place
Andrew Grant
Mechanical Engineering
Zachary, LA
Lauren Henry
Computer Science
Roswell, GA
Ikenna Okoro
Computer Science
Fayetteville, GA
Arrington Goss
Computer Science
Fayetteville, GA
Chelsea Manning
Computer Science
Dacula, GA
Milca Takou
Computer Engineering
Douala, Cameroon

Makr Papr is an innovative paper that capitalizes on the money that millions have spent on name tags.

Winning Inventure to us means publicity, property, and legacy. Publicity-wise, Inventure is an Emmy award winning show that reaches a large population of diverse companies, professionals and students. By being a part of Inventure we can get our company name out and increase the client list. As for property, Team Makr has created revolutionary and complex paper that solves a problem. There are several steps that we must take to get a patent, but through Inventure we hope to be able to get our first patent and truly say that we have invented something new. Lastly, Makr is a diverse team with racial minorities, women, and international students. We want to show others that it doesn't matter where you come from or your background. IF WE CAN DO IT, YOU CAN DO IT!

Candor

4 team members
People's Choice
Atishay Jain
Computer Science
Downingtown, PA
Srikar Parsi
Computer Science
Valrico, FL
Rishi Bengani
Computer Science
Houston, TX
Tanuj Dunthuluri
Computer Science
Overland Park, KS

Candor is an intelligent Constituent Relationship Management (CRM) platform built for local governments; streamlining constituent complaint reporting, management, and resolution to enhance efficiency, communication, and trust.

Winning the InVenture Prize would be more than just a win for our team; it would help push the GovTech industry to revolutionize how current democratic processes are conducted. Given the industry's emphasis on proven success, this accolade would not only showcase our dedication but also lend significant credibility to our company. Winning would also spotlight the scalability of our solution, showing its potential to transform citizen engagement across different levels of government. Furthermore, it would accelerate our journey, enabling us to innovate further and expand our impact on communities, making democratic participation more accessible and effective for everyone.

Breezy

2 team members
Yash Dulla
Biomedical Engineering
Algonquin, IL
Ishan Sheth
Computer Science
Atlanta, GA
Breezy automates patients assessments to streamline patient flow in medical practices.

Winning the Inventure Prize would propel Breezy's mission to alleviate the nursing shortage and eliminate patient wait times. It would also enable us to expand into new markets and enhance our system's integration with healthcare practices, streamlining patient care.

Greek Connect

2 team members
Matthew Pinto
Business Administration
Brookhaven, Georgia
Noah Pearce
Business Administration
Roswell, Georgia

Greek Connect streamlines point management for Greek organizations.

Winning the InVenture Prize would give us the mentorship, credibility, and funding we need to take this idea into a fully-fledged business. Greek Connect is poised to revolutionize operations within professional and social organizations, and as we go to market an InVenture Prize win would be the perfect catalyst to our rapid growth as we scale to serve organizations across the country.

Nalopack

3 team members
Rae Bloom
Industrial Design
Decatur, Ga
Kendra Garcia
Industrial Design
Marietta, Ga
El Pimentel
Industrial Design
Moscow, Idaho

Nalopack, our crossbody bag, boldly equips people to take community protection into their own hands, providing rapid access to the life-saving drug naloxone while challenging stigma through its uncompromising design.

InVenture means 50,000 more people aware of the impacts of fentanyl and the opioid crisis. Winning InVenture will allow Nalopack to leave Georgia Tech and enter the hands of people ready to keep their community safe. It’s a step on our journey to see an Atlanta [a Georgia, a United States, and a world] educated on harm reduction, with the power to keep its people safe.

Lilypad Health

2 team members
1st Place
Rhea Prem
Computer Engineering
Lynnfield, MA
Netra Gandhi
Biomedical Engineering
Grovetown, GA
Ethan Damiani
Biochemistry
Atlanta, GA

We are creating an at-home, non-invasive menstrual blood screening tool to test for gynecological diseases.

Winning the InVenture Prize would allow for increased access to gynecological testing for all menstruators! We can utilize the resources for our team to file our non-provisional patent and make great progress on our way to FDA approval, and get Lilypad in the hands of those who need it most! 

Judges

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Senior Technology Advisor for the City of Atlanta

Georgia Tech alum, Donald Beamer Jr., holds 11+ years of experience in new product introduction and strategy execution. Beamer currently serves as Atlanta’s first-ever appointed Senior Tech Advisor, as of 2022. In this position, he will work to advance Atlanta’s technology workforce in the form of existing firms and startups. Beamer is also a mentor for Techstars, a global investment business with one of the largest startup networks in the world.  

 

Beamer recently served as the General Manager of LotVision Automotive at Cox2M, a business line with Cox Communications that drives efficiencies by providing industries with the ability to monitor and track commercial assets. At Cox2M, Beamer was responsible for the strategy implementation for these tracking services and the launch of a $50 million commercial business line for Cox Communications. 

 

Prior to Cox, Beamer served as President and CFO of Monsieur, a Summer Associate at McKinsey and Company, and an Associate at Blackrock.

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Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Innova Solutions

Raj Sardana is Chairman, CEO and founder of Innova Solutions. He is a successful entrepreneur with more than 25 years of experience working with multinational companies in several industries including Technology, Aerospace, Defense, Venture Investment and Financial industries. Raj founded ACS Solutions in 1998 (Rebranded to Innova Solutions in 2022) and has grown it to a multinational organization with all its subsidiaries employing over 50,000 professionals worldwide and annual revenues approaching $3 billion. Prior to founding ACS, Raj served as President and CEO of Applied Communications, Inc., a multi media and Technology company in Atlanta, GA. He also served as the President and CEO of a multi-million dollar private equity company with a diverse and extensive investment portfolio in real estate, retail and service industries. Raj has held Technical and Operations Management positions at Teledyne CAE, a multi billion dollar US Department of Defense Contractor and at a Pratt and Whitney supplier in Connecticut.

Raj has an Advanced Management Degree from The Wharton School of Business (U Penn), a Masters Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech and a Bachelors degree in Mechanical Engineering from Delhi College of Engineering, New Delhi, India. He is actively involved with supporting several charities around the world.

Raj brings a strategic vision and extensive experience in both the US and off-shore markets.

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Chief Engineer of Pediatric Technology at Georgia Tech

Leanne West is the Chief Engineer of Pediatric Technology at Georgia Tech, where she serves as the technical liaison between Georgia Tech and children’s hospitals to identify unmet clinical needs and provide solutions. She is also President of the International Children’s Advisory Network (iCAN), a non-profit that promotes the importance of the pediatric patient experience and input in medical research and development. iCAN is a partner in the FDA CDRH Patient and Caregiver Connection and the Total Product Life Cycle Advisory Program.

She is a member of the International Society for Pediatric Innovation Executive Team, Patient Focused Medicines Development Board, the steering committees for the Pediatric Trial Network (PTN) and Multi-Regional Clinical Trials (MRCT) Center of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard (MRCT), a member of the Medical Device Innovation Consortium (MDIC) Patient Preference Information committee, the MDIC National Evaluation System for health Technology Coordinating Center (NESTcc) governing committee, the Technology Association of Georgia Digital Health Board, and the Georgia Technology Authority Board. In 2014, she was named Women in Technology’s Woman of the Year.

Hosts

Ashley Mengwasser profile picture

Lifestyle Host, Writer, and Executive Producer Ashley Mengwasser is an eight-time Emmy-winning media talent. She began her 13-year career in television hosting GPB’s popular series Georgia Traveler. Travel highlights include skydiving with grandma, boxing with an Olympian, ballroom dancing, and a ghoulish zombie transformation.

This high-school Valedictorian is as brainy as she is brazen. Ashley hosts GPB Education’s ongoing Emmy-winning Live Exploration series, and creative sparks fly when she co-hosts the annual InVenture Prize at Georgia Tech.

In 2018, Ashley was handpicked for Lowe’s explosive YouTube competition “DIY-No-Mite.” She then packed a duffel bag of dog treats to film the syndicated pet travel special Pets Welcome Here with her late basset hound Rosie “co-hosting.”

Ashley even goes “audio only” hosting the Classroom Conversations podcast series for Georgia educators, now in its third season.

Apart from hosting, her magnum opus as a writer-producer is PBS cultural documentary Chinese Tea: Elixir of the Orient. This artistic international project swept six Emmys in 2017, including Ashley’s solo Emmy for writing.

In the Atlanta community, Ashley emcees non-profit galas and has helped raise more than $300,000 to benefit women and children. Ashley graduated Phi Beta Kappa and Magna Cum Laude from Agnes Scott College in 2009 with a B.A. in English Literature.

Ashley spends non-work hours training her basset hound puppy, Starla. Starla enjoys peanut butter and sticks…but this isn’t about her.

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Faith Salie is an Emmy-winning contributor to CBS Sunday Morning and a regular on NPR’s Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!   

She starred Off-Broadway in 2021 in her solo show, Approval Junkie, based on her memoir of the same name, after a world premiere at Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre. Approval Junkie won Audible’s Best Theatre of 2022 award and can be heard worldwide on Audible.  She hosted five seasons of PBS’s Science Goes to the Movies and is a storyteller for The Moth, with her story viewed 6 million times and included in The Moth’s New York Times bestseller, Occasional Magic

Faith hosts the podcast Real Good, amplifying the voices of people making a difference in the world.  She’s grateful she grew up in Atlanta and received her B.A. from Harvard, aka “The Georgia Tech of the North.” 

She’s a Rhodes scholar who received her MPhil in Literature from Oxford University, after which her cohort became things like 2020 presidential candidates and Pulitzer Prize winners, while she went to Hollywood and landed on a Star Trek: Deep Space Nine collectible trading card worth hundreds of cents. Faith lives in Manhattan and is raising kids who say “y’all.”