NVC Finale 2016 Global Winners

Selected from more than 190 competing teams around the world, we’re pleased to announce the winners for this year’s HBS alumni New Venture Competition! 

First Place ($50,000)* 
Cobli 
Parker Treacy, MBA 2012 

Second Place ($25,000)* 
EverlyWell 
Julia Cheek, MBA 2011 

*Chosen by a global panel of Alumni Angel judges. 

Crowd Favorite ($2,000) 
ConnectHealth, Inc. 
Peter Park, MBA 2008

2016 NVC Regional Winners

Latin America

Cobli

Fleet and Logistics Intelligence:Big Data for fleet and logistics in South America

Parker Treacy, MBA 2012
View Company Overview
and 90-second Pitch Video

Company Overview:

When you look around at the products and services in your life, do you ever wonder how they arrived?  Normally, people imagine that they arrived by Fedex or some other ultra efficient logistics machine.  However, 85% of all fleet and logistics companies in South America are small businesses lacking the resources, sophistication, and scale to efficiently manage their logistics.  

And to think that a fleet of only 100 cars creates more than 220mm data points per year.  

Good luck getting through that with excel…

At Cobli, we are a team of data scientists solving these data challenges for the more than one million small fleet businesses in South America.  These small fleets do not use management systems because the systems were designed for large fleets and rely on expensive hardware and complicated reporting processes.

We have changed this through:

1) Simplified Hardware: Cobli uses two types of low cost hardware that require no professional installation.  This is important to small and medium sized fleets because the upfront cost and complexity of traditional devices is a large barrier to entry for these companies with low cash flow visibility and forecasting abilities.

Cobli’s cheaper, smarter, and easy-to-install devices thus dramatically decrease the barrier to entry and offer a clear and quick ROI.

2) Big Data Analytics: Fleet data is large and complicated to make sense of.  Through Cobli's Machine Learning algorithms, Cobli is able to automate complex calculations such as route optimization, detection of gas and parts theft, and automated driver identification among dozens of others.    

In a market that is slowly and painfully moving away from hardware to software and data, Cobli is the clear leader.

3) User Experience: Since the average fleet manager in South America is not highly educated, nor technologically savvy, delivering this intelligence in a way they can understand is a great challenge.  Cobli analyzes click-through rates, data downloads, and approximately 15 other user generated feedback to continuously improve the interface and data exchange.

Cobli is delivering intelligence to small fleets in a highly digestible way.

With our market of 15mm vehicles in South America and a contribution margin of 70% based on a monthly fee per vehicle per month, we have a highly scalable and highly profitable business model that solves a massive industry problem within logistics in Brazil and throughout the world.

What better way to deliver your caipirinha to the beach than that?

Texas

EverlyWell

Health & Wellness:Your test. Your time. Your terms. EverlyWell is a direct-to-consumer health testing company that provides innovative, at-home testing kits and completely transformed lab results.
Julia Cheek, MBA 2011  View Company Overview and 90-second Pitch Video

Company Overview:

Your test. Your time. Your terms.

Think about the last time you had a health screening or diagnostic test: sitting in a waiting room, seeing a doctor, waiting in another waiting room, going to a lab, getting your blood drawn, and then receiving a list of numbers that are difficult to understand.

Diagnostic testing is cumbersome, time-consuming and confusing. We’re here to change that. EverlyWell believes that health tests shouldn’t be hard to get – or hard to understand. We provide convenient, at-home health tests with easy-to-read results.

The EverlyWell experience is simple. You order one of our kits online, it arrives to your home in two business days, you collect your sample and return it via pre-paid mail to one of our fully-certified partner laboratories. A board-certified physician in your state will review and validate your results before you get them. EverlyWell provides a complete, easy-to-read results report online in just a few days. Our customers will also have access to a community where they can discuss their results, what changes they have implemented, and how their results have changed.

We’ve worked with some of the most advanced labs in the country to design our initial test menu, which includes Food Sensitivity, Cardiovascular, Inflammation, Metabolism, Women’s Fertility, and Heavy Metals & Toxins. These comprehensive test kits measure key biomarkers through dried blood spot, urine or saliva samples that are collected in the comfort of your home. Kits start at $59 for one-time purchases, or you can subscribe for $9.99/month to get a quarterly cardiovascular kit and member-only discounts on other tests.

EverlyWell empowers individuals by providing easy access to health data, and we are focused on becoming the Amazon of direct-to-consumer tests. We are proud to offer a suite of direct-to-consumer, regulatory-compliant tests…without a lab visit. Visit us at everlywell.com.

Africa

ConnectHealth, Inc.

Software: The nearest doctor is in your pocket


Peter Park, MBA 2008
View Company Overview
and 90-second Pitch Video

Company Overview:

Hi everyone, and greetings from Nairobi! My name’s Peter Park, CEO and co-founder of ConnectHealth.  ConnectHealth is a telemedicine app for outpatient healthcare in Africa.

Accessing a doctor in Africa is a huge problem.

For example, in Kenya, where we’re launching, there’s only 1 physician here for every 5000 people. Compare that to the US, which has 13 times as many doctors for the same number of people.

And if you’re lucky enough to know one of the 8,000 doctors serving a population of 45 million, you better hope you’re one of the fortunate few who live near them: 80% of doctors live in just 2 cities in the country, whereas 80% of the population does not.

Yet half of all outpatient visits don’t require face-to-face interactions at all.

So we built a solution that allows patients to access doctors without having to go them. Through ConnectHealth, doctors can list their services online, use our telemedicine tools to consult with patients from anywhere, and accept mobile payments for their services. They can write prescriptions and lab orders, and in select cities, we can fulfill them and even bring them to the patient’s doorstep.

We just launched a private beta just 3 ½ weeks ago with 40 doctors, who together manage 16,000 patients, and they're introducing the the app now with their patients. We have a substantial wait list, and we’re onboarding them by the end of the summer when we emerge out of our private beta.

This would have ConnectHealth being used by nearly 10% of Kenya's doctors right out of the gate when we launch officially in the fall of 2016. And it would already make us the largest network of doctors in the country.

Despite the relative scarcity of doctors, this is a big business opportunity, because as a marketplace, we monetize a percentage of every transaction conducted throughout the entire outpatient care cycle. Outpatient consultations alone represent a $400M market in Kenya, where we're launching, and $11B across Africa.

We’re ConnectHealth. We're building the healthcare system we all want to see, regardless of where we’re from, and starting where it’s a wide open canvas to build it. If you’re interested in shaping the healthcare system, and starting in the places that need it most, we’d love to hear from you.

Asia-Pacific

Sinefa Pty Ltd.

Technology: It’s about time network visibility and control was made this simple


Peter Russell, AMP 160
View Company Overview
and 90-second Pitch Video

Company Overview:

The Problem
We know the Internet is biggest change agent in our current times. It’s a revolution as epic as the Industrial Revolution. It has the power to break the poverty trap for billions of humans especially with health and education. But data is growing fast and networks are getting congested.

The reason they are congested is that users take up all the bandwidth they can get. So, no matter how big a network link is, it will often fill up with data. When there is insufficient bandwidth it causes network buffering, which is taking up everyone’s time and that has a big economic impact all around the world. (Not to mention our sanity!)

Our technology shines a light into this dark realm and we are finding out some interesting facts. We can see that the way the network is being used causes most congestion problems. For example, we can see recreational apps, updates and backups unnecessarily eating bandwidth in organizational networks.

We can also see that apps have unique personalities. Some are bullies, like Netflix and Apple Updates, who eat up all the bandwidth. Some are gentle souls like Citrix and VoIP, who need to be protected and cared for. And they are all competing for bandwidth.

To get them to all to play together nicely, we could ask the apps to behave themselves and to respect each other, or we could ask the app developers to build in some manners, but that is unlikely to happen any time soon!

Our Solution
So what, realistically, can we do to address this problem? Its simple: Sinefa allows network managers to see the traffic and understand where the problems are, and then it can allocate bandwidth to applications in priority order, so that important traffic can always get through.

There are many companies that provide bits and pieces of this technology but there is nothing else like Sinefa. We have the first solution that combines live visibility and control delivered from the Cloud in an easy-to-use and affordable format. It is just what network managers need.

Our Customers
We have schools, governments, telcos, miners, manufacturers, professional services, event operators, banks and many more customers using it. And they are spread from the Americas to Europe, Asia and even Australia. We are currently growing at 15% per month.

About Us
Sinefa is a Melbourne, Australia based software company that started to market in February 2015. We have a team of nine with five engineers, two in sales and marketing and two independent directors. So far we are entirely self-funded.

We are passionate about getting networks to perform better and we are very excited to be contributing to the development of the Internet. One day we hope the Internet will be a ubiquitous utility for everyone in the world, with visibility and control sitting alongside routers and firewalls as core network functions.

PS. Sinefa means “clouds” in Greek.

Canada

Visualping

Web Services/SaaS: More than 300,000 users and most Fortune 500 companies use us to get alerted when something changes on the web-pages of their choosing

Serge Salager, MBA 2004
View Company Overview
and 90-second Pitch Video

Company Overview:

We are in a rocketship!

Visualping is currently used by more than 300,000 people. 15,000 new users sign up every month. We have plans to grow to 1 million users this year!

We track webpages for changes

Our customers use Visualping to select an area of a website of their choosing and get alerted when it changes.

We have sent 27 million change notifications in 2015

Job hunters watch the career page of their favorite company; Taylor Swift Ticketmaster page is tracked by thousand fans waiting for performance dates; we have a peak in lawnmowers pages being tracked in September… there are millions of different use cases!

Our revenues come from professional use

Companies use Visualping to automate tasks, monitor Google rankings, Yelp reviews, competitors, keep up with changes in law etc.

Just as with LinkedIn, the professional use is where most of our revenues come from.

Companies using us include Google, The Wall Street Journal, Sequoia Capital, the US Department of Justice, the FBI, Apple, Ford, Air France and most of Fortune 500 companies.

People are comparing us to RSS

We recently uncovered a key insight: Some folks have been comparing Visualping to "my personal RSS feed"

This is why we want to replace all the outdated orange RSS buttons, which were once used by millions of people, by our one-click Visualping tracker widget.

We humbly dream to be next to the Facebook and Twitter widget in as many webpages as possible across the world. This will help website owners bringing back visitors when they have an important change to broadcast.

Monetizing millions of users

Like Google, we intimately know what our users are interested (really, really interested) about. We also have their email addresses. Our email alert notification has an open rate of 95%.

Once we reach scale, our plan is to show banner ads or affiliate “buy” buttons to pair, for example, those watching a Taylor Swift concert availability with a Taylor Swift album release; those watching for lawnmower discounts at Lowe’s with an offer from Best Buy etc.

After being bootstrapped, now raising a seed round

We are a distributed team in Canada, the US, Switzerland and Russia and have financed the company internally so far. To execute on our RSS feed plan, we are kicking off our first seed round.

Thank you in advance for your votes - this helps us raising awareness about our upcoming capital raise!

Europe

PensionBee

Financial Tech: Manage Your Money Online



Romina Savova, MBA 2012
View Company Overview
and 90-second Pitch Video

Company Overview:

For pension owners who must take control of their retirement savings, PensionBee is an online pension manager that helps customers to find their existing pensions and combine them in a good-value plan managed by the world’s largest investment managers.

Note: A UK pension is the equivalent of a 401(k) in the US.

The UK pension market

With £1.7 trillion ($2.4 trillion) in total assets, the UK pension market is the second largest in the world (after the US) and has been growing at a rate of c.15% in the last 5 years. There are currently 9.1 million pension owners and saving is imperative due to the aging population. 

The pension industry is failing to live up to customer demands. Pension owners are frustrated by:

• Scattered pension savings. The average UK adult switches jobs 11x and 80% of pension owners don’t take their pensions with them.
• Poor value for money. Over 60% pay annual fees in excess of 0.7% of their pension assets, reducing their ultimate pension pot by over £60,000 ($85,000).
• Excessive complexity

The PensionBee solution

The PensionBee online pension manager is revolutionising this lackluster market with:

• An easy-to-use online consolidation tool that finds old pensions with a limited amount of information. The tool is free, available exclusively at PensionBee and takes only 5 minutes of the saver’s time.
• A hassle-free switch into a good-value plan managed by two of the world’s largest, most reputable investment managers, BlackRock and State Street. At this point, PensionBee begins charging annual, recurring fees of 0.5% - 0.7% of total pension assets.
• A secure, online account for customers to view their new balance and add contributions.

Go-to-market strategy

PensionBee targets the vast segment of savers under 50 who struggle to access a low-cost product independently, and, with less than £150,000 ($210,000) of investable assets, are not sufficiently wealthy to attract Financial Advisers. Research indicates these savers account for 60-70% of the market, including frequent job switchers, new mothers, entrepreneurs and others.

We use digital marketing to find and capture customers through engaging content. The content frequently links back to pensions and is housed within the PensionBee website, which itself is being promoted by key influencers. We are also preparing public campaigns to create brand awareness and get people saving for the future.

Milestones

PensionBee began operating in March 2015 with full-time CEO and HBS alumna Romi Savova (formerly Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley) and full-time CTO Jonathan Lister (formerly British Telecom).

Over 2015:

• Our core technology was built, world class investment managers were appointed to manage the pension funds and the product launched in December 2015.
• Our team grew to ten and Mark Wood, former CEO of Prudential Europe, was appointed as Chairman of the Board.
• We raised £1 million ($1.4 million), including through the Harvard Business School Alumni Angels.

What’s next?

Our new fundraising is underway and expansion to the US market is under consideration for 2017.

Mid-Atlantic US

TradingFront

Financial Services: We help advisors win



Patrick Cleary, MBA 2010
View Company Overview
and 90-second Pitch Video

Company Overview:

We believe financial advisors should win in the 21st century. We equip financial advisors with a complete platform solution so they can compete against automated technologies. Financial advice isn’t dead, but the tools financial advisors use certainly don’t help.

Tradingfront is an A to Z platform that handles all aspects of a financial advisory practice. Fully integrated reporting, CRM, client onboarding, a custom white-label robo advisor, compliance, and automated trading make the financial advisor’s life easy. 

Now any financial advisor can run a practice at radically lower cost and increased efficiency. Gone are the days of overpaying for expensive platforms or trying to figure out how to integrate 5 different software solutions.  We help financial advisors win again and harness technology to provide advice at affordable cost.

Central US

Oars + Alps

E-Commerce/Men's Grooming: Direct-to-consumer men's grooming company providing premium, natural products without the markup
Mia Saini Duchnowski, MBA 2010
View Company Overview
and 90-second Pitch Video

Company Overview:

Men just aren’t shaving as much as they used to. It’s perfectly okay to stroll into a meeting with stubble or a beard. In fact, men’s non-shaving toiletries is a $3.4B market and growing, while shaving sales are declining.

There is a disconnect in the men’s grooming industry as it does not cater to the millennial man.

The current brands:
• lack excellent e-commerce and m-commerce (Kiehl’s)
• are available in women-oriented stores (Sephora or Bloomingdale’s) or unappealing retail environments (drug stores)
• are too mass market and full of toxic chemicals (Neutrogena, Dove, Axe)
• are too expensive (Malin + Goetz)
• are too old-fashioned and staid (Old Spice).

Oars + Alps is a direct to consumer men’s grooming brand providing premium skin and body products without the markup, delivered to your door in an auto-renewal way.

Did you know skin cancer is the most common, yet preventable cancer in the world? We know you can’t prevent skin cancer with current leading brands whose products are full of toxins and cancer-causing chemicals. Our products are made with natural ingredients and are free of
parabens, sulfates and phthalates.

Our customer is one of the 28 million millennial men (22-34) who prioritize having healthy and hydrated skin by actively taking care of their skin with products. We are targeting the “guy’s guy.” 80% of these guys say the biggest impediment to buying products is they hate shopping in
a retail environment. They hate the long lines, chatty salespeople, overwhelming shelves.

Today’s millennial “guy’s guy” is on-the-move, time-strapped and heavily influenced by his significant other and social media when it comes to finding and using grooming products. Our team understands millennial guys extremely well as we’ve helped clients like GoPro, Beats by Dre and Amex target this demographic.

Launched in 2015 by Mia Saini (Harvard Business School, 2010) and Laura Cox, Oars + Alps leverages the founders experience in chemistry, engineering, video content creation, marketing and ecommerce. The former Chief Marketing Officer of Ulta Beauty serves as an advisor. To
date, the company has raised $360,000 in seed money. 75% of those surveyed in our Pre-Launch indicated they would switch brands from their current brand (the #1 skin and body care brand for millennial guys is Kiehl’s). This is very encouraging, because we are using the same manufacturer as Kiehl’s (which does about $500m in sales) and we have former Kiehl’s chemists working with us. Our products are natural (Kiehl’s is not) and about 50% more affordable because we are not operating brick-and-mortar stores. We are currently iterating on our Pre-
Launch products and will be formally launching this summer.

Oars + Alps aims to make it painless for guys to get the non-shaving grooming products they want, straight to their door without paying any upcharge. No fuss. No sunburn. No using your significant other’s products (and smelling like a girl). No wasted money. So join the movement
and take to the oars!

New England

Day Zero Diagnostics

Medical Diagnostics: Combining genome sequencing & machine learning to modernize infectious disease diagnosis and treatment
Jong Lee, MBA 1999
View Company Overview
and 90-second Pitch Video

Company Overview:

When a patient shows up at a hospital today with an infection, samples are collected and sent to the lab where they are smeared onto petri dishes to see if they grow.  It is only after they are cultured that bacteria can be tested for drug resistance.  This antiquated process takes 3-5 days, or longer, and every hour that a patient goes untreated, their risk of death and complications increases. 

With little information to go on, physicians are forced to treat with empiric therapy: powerful, broad-spectrum antibiotics that are expensive, have significant toxicity, and are increasingly less effective due to the growth in drug resistant pathogens. 

At DZD, we are developing a sequencing-based rapid diagnostic that identifies, within hours, both the species and the antibiotic resistance profile of a bacterial pathogen. We use high throughput sequencing technologies and proprietary machine learning algorithms to rapidly predict pathogen species and drug resistance profiles. Our approach allows for the simultaneous testing of every known bacterial species and every known resistance marker, along with the ability to identify novel resistance determinants as they emerge.  With DZD, physicians can treat patients with the most effective drug in hours rather than days, avoiding unnecessary costs and poor clinical outcomes.

The worldwide market for pathogen identification and resistance testing is currently a $4.2B market, with 35-40M tests done in the US alone each year.  Our desktop system will have a target price of $50,000-$80,000, and a per test cost of $50.  Using our diagnostic, hospitals will be able to dramatically reduce hospital length of stay, the overuse of expensive and often ineffective antibiotics, and most importantly, excess mortality.

Our founding team includes expertise in bacterial sequencing, infectious diseases, machine learning and medical technology commercialization. 

Douglas Kwon, MD PhD.  Infectious Disease physician at MGH, Assist. Professor of Medicine at Harvard. Director of Clinical Research at the Ragon Institute.
Melis Anahtar, PhD. MD-PhD student in the Harvard-MIT HST program. Rhodes Scholar. Expertise in bacterial sequencing, immunology, and microfluidics.  
Miriam Huntley. PhD candidate in Applied Math at Harvard investigating computational and theoretical problems in biology, specifically DNA folding.
Dougal Maclaurin. PhD candidate in Physics at Harvard working in machine learning at the Harvard Intelligent Probabilistic Systems group.
Jong Lee, MBA.  20+ year executive and management consulting experience in medical technology.  Former SVP Marketing and Strategy at ConforMIS.

DZD has made substantial progress in its technology development.  We have collected over 7,000 samples from the MGH microbiology lab, creating what will be the largest database of bacterial genomic sequences paired with their antibiotic resistance.  We have developed an effective protocol for the enrichment of bacteria directly from patient blood and urine samples, eliminating the need for culture. Our initial machine learning algorithm can already predict the resistance profile of a sample with 99% specificity and 94% sensitivity, without optimization and using a limited training set.  We expect to launch our product in 2018. 

Northeastern US

1 Atelier LLC

Luxury Design, Manufacturing & Retail: Luxury Handbags. Custom Made. Transparently Priced. Delivered in 21 Days.

Stephanie Sarka, MBA 1990
View Company Overview
and 90-second Pitch Video

Company Overview: REINVENTING LUXURY
Luxury Handbags. Custom Made. Transparently Priced. Delivered in 21 Days.

The Vision/Objective
For the 350 million consumers spending $275 BN annually on personal luxury goods, the ubiquity of brands that all look the same and the absurd value equation have generated substantial discontent as customers question why they are paying large sums for product that isn’t unique or differentiated. They are looking for a more authentic and individual experience where they can get what they really want.

1 Atelier is a new kind of luxury brand that empowers women, through our online app, to customize their own unique luxury handbags at a totally transparent price. Each product is exquisitely handcrafted at our NYC Atelier and delivered within 21 days. We are creating an individual and fun experience where women get to design exactly what they want, at the price they want.

Problem
At 1 Atelier, we believe that something fundamental is missing in luxury. You and me – the customer.

Not so long ago, luxury was about creating beautiful, customized products based on your individual preferences, sense of style and what you wanted to invest. They were handcrafted by skilled artisans and became uniquely yours. But mass production has eliminated the voice of the customer except at the highest levels, where a custom product is exorbitantly priced and takes several months to receive. The genuine notion of luxury has been replaced by celebrity designers, logo-laden product, swollen marketing budgets, and over-the-top retail stores built for prestige. Products are priced well beyond their value to support this huge cost structure, the legacy 2-tiered distribution model and the desire to project more exclusive positioning to the super wealthy. The consumer is not involved and knows nothing about the origin, design, construction and pricing of the product she buys. It is just a transaction - she has no relationship with the brand.

Solution
1 Atelier is Reinventing Luxury. We are building a transformational direct-to-consumer luxury brand that delivers exquisitely handcrafted products, manufactured in America, at a price that reflects only what went into making the product. New world technology enables us to provide old world luxury. We are deploying technology to disrupt the process at every step, from enabling our customer to design her one-of-a-kind bag with our rich web and mobile apps, to facilitating scalable and efficient bespoke production, to marketing and selling directly to a global audience via the web. Most importantly, we are completely rewriting the relationship people have with the luxury products they buy. We believe that true luxury is having something special made just for you, at a transparent price, that reflects your unique taste and individuality and tells your story.

Northwestern US

Enable Biosciences Inc.

Biotechnology/Medical Diagnostics:
Empowering Earlier Disease Diagnosis via Ultrasensitive Antibody Detection for Optimal Health Outcomes
David Seftel, MBA 1992
View Company Overview
and 90-second Pitch Video

Company Overview:

What barcodes did for retail, Enable does for medical diagnostics

Every item in a store has a barcode

Imagine if most diseases had a unique barcode to ensure in-time diagnosis

• A barcode that detects disease far earlier, faster and with greater accuracy, that enables timely
selection of the best medical therapies for optimal care results, for billions of people.

• At Enable Biosciences we have invented that barcode and the proprietary chemical “glue” solution
(reagent) that attaches a unique barcode, made out of DNA, to disease-specific proteins called
antibodies

• A barcode that every lab in the world already has a reader for - called a Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) machine, usually used to detect DNA, that can now run our tests - no new equipment required.

• In a 34 Billion/yr reagent market, growing at 12% CAGR, Enable has developed and performed successful validation of bar codes for 3 large and important antibody-associated disease markets where accurate, early diagnosis matters most – Type 1 Diabetes/Type 2 Diabetes re-classification, HIV and Thyroid Cancer, worth over $12 Billion in retail test sales/yr.

• Revenue from academic hospital partners starts October 2016.

The Core technology (ADAP) was invented by Peter Robinson and Jason Tsai, two PhD students frustrated by the limitations of current antibody technology, in UC Berkeley lab of Prof. Carolyn Bertozzi, since July 2015 based at Stanford. Co-founder team was formed with David Seftel, M.D., M.B.A. (HBS) at Summer 2015 UCSF Lean Launchpad for Lifesciences where they graduated as top team and incorporated as Enable Biosciences in August 2015.

• Really big market - diagnostic immunology market is 34B and growing at 12%
• Real need: Product attribute of ultra-sensitivity is a must have – earlier diagnosis makes the most
difference to care
• Really easy to implement with no change in current workflow, uses ubiquitous PCR machines.
• Really high gross margins - 98%
• Real customer traction is driving adoption - San Franciso and Alameda County Public Health for
dramatically improved oral HIV test
• Really top scientists confer critical sales credibility – buyers decide on scientific merit, lower cost and easy implementation. Over 38% of the total US market for our test, worth $12.9 Billion is selling to just 2 customers – Quest Diagnostics and Labcorp – both already in the pipeline to buy.
• Really short time to market - Sales within collaborator institutions to commence by October 2016 (no FDA approval needed), FDA approval for broader sales within 18 months, approval much easier than drugs since no patient care is impacted. Patient consent is not needed to compare test performance with stored samples.

Our Goal – transforming early disease diagnosis to benefit billions worldwide

Southeast Asia + Middle East

MPM Infosoft Private Limited (Sandman)

Software: Transforming Rejections in Metal Castings into Profits by Data Analytics

Deepak Chowdhary, OPM 46 2015
View Company Overview
and 90-second Pitch Video

Company Overview:

Did you know, when we drive our car, what we don’t see but our lives depend on, are castings. A defect in a brake disc, steering knuckle or a crankshaft casting will compromise our safety. It has to be rejected! Castings are typically made in sand- moulds, in cast iron foundries.

Problem:
Unfortunately, The multi-variate cause and effect relationships .. the “noise”.. of the casting process, make rejections inevitable.

The huge, often un-validated & uncorrelated data points generated and stored in disconnected pockets, makes analysis of casting defects reactive & subjective. This leads to repetitive rejections.

Globally All 25,000 iron foundries (world casting census 2014), casting 80 million tons, losing close to US$ 1 billion at 1% rejection rates, suffer rejections. And, lose almost 56 GWh of energy at a conversion rate of 0.7MWh/ton of Casting! And, generate toxic waste sand in thousands of tons. And, are hungry for more new sand, water and Clay.

Solution:
MPM Infosoft Private Limited was formed with a mission and conviction to develop SANDMAN:
Now, for the first time in the world foundries have a data analytics driven decision support software solution. A tool to gather, store, organize and validate data. SANDMAN helps foundries to optimize their greensand process control using advanced predictive data science techniques & proprietary (patent pending), complex algorithms. Helps reduce the noise, move from reactive to proactive greensand control, and reclaim lost profits! Corollary: save natural resources and the environment too!

Market
Sandman is sold as a subscription model. At $25,000 average subscription fee per line of a foundry, the worldwide market is estimated at $1.25 billion/annum. Seriously? We know we can’t grab it all! Conservatively? assuming a 10% market share as a first mover, we are looking at +125 million yearly subscriptions in the long term. Realistically? Only 15 million/annum in the short term.

Team that loves the transformative power of analytics:
Mr. Deepak Chowdhary, B.Com 1979 (Mumbai University), HBS OPM 46. Entrepreneur; Innovator of SANDMAN.

35+ years of experience in Foundry greensand control. Pioneered engineered Lustrous Carbon Additives in India. He hates rejections.

Prof: Dr.Raghunathan Rengaswamy and Prof. Dr. Shankar Narsimhan, IIT* - Chemical Engineering.

Experts in system and process design and analytics. Prof. Shankar has co-authored “Data Reconciliation and Gross Error detection: An intelligent use of Process Data.” When they talk math, the team listens.

Mr. J V Patankar M-Tech Metallurgy and Mr. H K S Rao – Technical Sales,

Foundry domain experts with 30+ years experience.

Ganesh Sankaran, Arjun and Dinesh – IIT - Software and Data Sciences.

Ms. Aditi Chowdhary, Strategic Marekting - Babson MBA Entrepneurship (2008)

Strategy and Marketing.

*Indian Institute of Technology

We, Team SANDMAN are seriously transforming the way foundries, a very conservative industry, will look at their data and analytics for profits now and in the future to contain rejection at the very source. Doing so by process optimization through predictive analytics, it’s like learning how to fish knowing exactly where to cast the net for the maximum catch!

Southeastern US

Gradvisor

Financial Services/Roboadvisor: A roboadvisor that makes it easy for employers to roll out college savings as part of their benefit package, solving parental employee's #1 household financial concern
Marcos Cordero, MBA 2005
View Company Overview
and 90-second Pitch Video

Company Overview:

What is Gradvisor?
Gradvisor is a roboadvisory platform that makes it easy for employers to offer college savings as part of their employee benefit package, helping solve their #1 financial household concern (Gallup, 2015). Even though it’s THE top of mind issue for parental employees, more employers offer pet insurance than college savings.

Wait, more employers offer pet insurance than college savings, why?
Until now, saving in a tax advantaged 529 college savings plan required parents sifting through over 90+ plans across 49 states, 1100+ investment options and 34 different state tax rules. And for employers, unlike a 401(k) plan, offering a single 529 plan could result in lost savings, excess fees, and missed tax benefits for employees that reside in different geographies.

Always in the employees’ best interest, and personalized
As an SEC Registered Investment Adviser, we have fiduciary standards, which is a fancy way of saying that we do what is in the best interest of the employee. Unbiased, objective, always.  After an employee completes an online risk and situation assessment, the proprietary algorithm maximizes the future expected college savings, providing the specific recommendation for the employee.  In minutes, and within our application, the employee opens a 529 plan and will have ongoing monitoring and tracking, ensuring they reach their family’s college savings goals.

Our vision
Gradvisor envisions making corporate 529 plans do for college tuition what the 401(k) has done did for retirement, which is to make it more affordable and accessible to a wider spectrum of Americans. We are going to look back 5 years from now and not believe that employer’s didn’t offer college savings.

Serious traction
Gradvisor launched October 2015, has signed up 12 different companies as well as 1 professional employer organization (PEO), reaching 27,100 eligible employees. Gradvisor has been selected as the college savings solution within the new financial wellness platform being rolled out by the largest HR consultancy in the world, and is being seamlessly integrated into ADP’s Benefits Marketplace within the coming months.  This integration is key as it provides a single-sign on experience for employees of ADP’s customers!

College savings experts that are also geeky
As customary, let us brag a bit.  This rapid success can be attributed to a hardworking team exceptionally suited to solve this issue. Marcos Cordero, CEO, is a Harvard Business School alumni who led the acquisition of Savingforcollege.com, the web’s leading site for 529 plan information, in 2013 as has served as CEO ever since. Scott Mulvaney, VP of Sales, has experience in the benefits space, serving as an account executive at ADP. He also has 529 plan experience as the Program Manager of the D.C. 529 plan. Matthew Toner, Director of Strategy & Business Development, is one the country’s foremost subject matter experts on 529 plans and is the co-author of the book ‘The Best Way to Save for College’.

With a scalable online platform, innovative product features and proven management team, Gradvisor plans to cover 110,000 employees by the end of 2016.

Southwestern US

Tesloop

Transportation: City to City Travel in Semi-Autonomous Electric Vehicle


Rahul Sonnad, MBA 1999
View Company Overview
and 90-second Pitch Video

Company Overview:

At Tesloop, our mission is to offer an amazing and sustainable travel experience between cities.

We do this by leveraging electric vehicle technology recently introduced by Tesla, that will soon disrupt regional transportation. 

While we would all prefer clean, sustainable transportation, before this year, it just wasn’t economical. But now, with over 250 Tesla SuperCharger locations that give us free renewable electricity forever, we can keep cars running all day and night. And even if we drive 4 million miles, we’re still covered by the motor warranty well into the next decade.

This is economically transformative.

And things will get even better very quickly. By 2018 - though you’ll still need someone behind the wheel - Tesloop’s fleet of vehicles will drive themselves, with dramatically higher safety levels than unassisted humans.  And because they are essentially rolling computers, we can start to remotely control more and more of their operations.

We launched Tesloop in July 2015, and have been offering daily service, since July 2015, from LA and Orange County to Las Vegas. It costs $85 for one seat in a shared car.  Our growing base of customers give the service unanimous 5 star rave reviews, and they keep coming back with their friends. With a wide range of complimentary amenities such as healthy snacks and beverages, noise canceling headphones, wifi, charging, an assortment of pillows, and finely crafted playlists - you can see their attraction.

And this year, we have started offering free travel for those who want to drive Teslas. Our best customers are now offered training and a “Pilots Certification”, which allows them to travel at no cost, by booking the driver’s seat one-way on any route.  And this helps keep fares low, reducing our driver staffing costs by 70% over two years.

Our goal is to take Tesloop around the world. We are expanding to a number of California cities this spring, and plan to have a national footprint by the end of the year, with global expansion in 2017, all with fares around 25 cents a mile (i.e. Boston to Hartford $29 one-seat, one-way).

Our thesis is that the future leaders in “car as a service” will emerge on an Autonomous, Computerized, Electric Vehicle platform on highway routes, using a technology platform similar to ours, and these will eclipse all other transportation modes.

This is great news for the world, because it means that when utilized in this service model, each electric vehicle can have a 20x greater environmental impact than in a consumer-owned usage scenario. And that translates into reducing 3600 tons of carbon emissions per car. All on a platform that is 5x more cost efficient. 

And while all this technical progress amazes us, at Tesloop, we pledge to never lose sight of the fact that travel is about more than just the utility, but also the journey. We want to make sure that your Tesloop experience is nourishing, friendly, and relaxing - so you arrive at your destination feeling renewed and refreshed.

NVC Sponsors

Eligibility Requirements

• The venture must have an HBS alumni as a founder or C-level employee.
• Applicants must be a member of a local club in their designated region. The home or business address on record at HBS must also be located within the club's geographic region.
• Ventures must have less than $2million USD in revenue. In addition, they may not have more than $1.5 million USD in total debt/invested equity capital. Teams must meet both criteria. Invested capital is defined as funding appearing on the plan's balance sheet at the time of submission to the regional NVC lead club, which is no later than February 1, 2016. Teams will disclose any prior funding received at the time of registration.
• Investment funds and acquisitions are not deemed "new ventures."

Submission

Applications are to be submitted to an NVC lead club listed below via the online application process. Visit individual club websites for details on local entry, application deadline and registration fee amount. Need help identifying your region? Refer to the NVC region breakout.

• Africa (South Africa, Nigeria)
• Asia-Pacific (Shanghai)
• Canada (Toronto)
• Europe (France)
• Latin America (Brazil)
• Mid-Atlantic US (Washington, DC)
• Midwestern US (Chicago)
• New England (Boston)
• New York (New York)
• Northwestern US (Northern California)
• Southeast Asia (India)
• Southeastern US (Atlanta)
• Southwestern US (Orange County, San Diego, Southern California)
• Texas US (Texas)

Venture Evaluation

NVC region leads and club selection committee, Rock Center for Entrepreneurship, HBS Alumni Angels Association and HBS Alumni Clubs & Associations will evaluate entries.

The following criteria will be used to judge your venture:

• Problem & Solution: Define the problem, need or pain-point.  What solution does your venture provide? How is your solution innovative? Technology, business model, IP etc. Describe your value proposition.
• Target market: Identify and quantify (size & spend) your addressable market for your product and service. Highlight growth and trends.
• Attractive business model: How do you plan to make money? Who pays you? What are your distribution channels? What is your gross margin?
  Is your business model viable with the ability to efficiently scale, making it appealing to acquirers or position it for an IPO.

• Financing: How much money do you need and for what purpose?
• Team Can the founder, key team members, and advisors operate and scale a successful business.  Highlight industry knowledge, skill-set, leadership, relationships, key successes & failures.
  
  

Please refer to the NVC "Pitch Deck" template, to be used for the final pitch event at the Regional Finals Competition.

Regional Finals Competition

Each team will give a 10-15 minute presentation to a panel of judges. The panel will also have 10-15 minutes for Q&A and feedback. Revised pitch decks are allowed for presentations, but time will be strictly enforced.

THE 2015 Regional Winners

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE 2015
$25,000 CATEGORY WINNERS!

Greatest Impact Eve & Tribe of the Africa Region
Most Innovative: BollyX Fitness of the Northeastern US Region
Best Investment (chosen by global judges): StreetShares of the Mid-Atlantic US Region

2015 NVC Regional Winners

Northeastern US BollyX Fitness Fitness: The Bollywood workout Minal Mehta, MBA 2011 View team executive summary and 90-second elevator pitch video BollyX Fitness Executive Summary: BollyX®, Inc. is the world's leading and fastest-growing Bollywood fitness company, building a vibrant community of certified fitness instructors and class participants to celebrate active living and combat the global obesity epidemic. Launched as a Delaware C corporation in 2013 by Shahil Patel and Minal Mehta, BollyX is the product of their expertise in Bollywood dance choreography and background in athletics. BollyX is in the business of training and certifying fitness professionals, in-person and online, to teach the BollyX Bollywood Workout. A BollyX workout entails a 50- minute cardio class that incorporates Bollywood dance moves and high intensity interval training; one class burns 500-800 calories. As a licensing program with a monthly subscription fee, BollyX provides instructors with training videos, class content, marketing resources, employment opportunities, and community forums through a best-in-class e-learning platform. Additionally, BollyX merchandises branded apparel and accessories for instructors and class participants (shop.bollyx.com). In 12 months, BollyX has trained 300+ fitness instructors across 20 US states and reached 50,000+ class participants. BollyX classes are now in 100+ fitness facilities, from large national chains and franchises to boutique gyms, high profile corporations and universities (including Harvard). In 2015, BollyX is invited to be a headline presenter at the world's largest fitness convention, IDEA World, an opportunity rarely extended to new fitness companies. BollyX has attracted media coverage from ABC News, Headline News, and NPR. With a scalable training platform, innovative fitness curriculum, and proven management team, BollyX is building the world's first large-scale and globally recognized Bollywood fitness brand. In 2015, BollyX will train 1,200 more fitness instructors, scale up its online training program, and partner with major national gym chains to expand the reach of BollyX classes. BollyX is not pre-revenue and has raised $750K seed from media/entertainment, fitness, and merchandising experts. Africa Eve & Tribe Retail: Revolutionizing fashion retail in Africa Ori Gbadebo-Smith, MBA 2013 Simone Bartlett, MBA 2013 View team executive summary and 90-second elevator pitch video Eve & Tribe Executive Summary: Eve & Tribe is an indigenous social-commerce fashion brand, specializing in apparel, accessories and lifestyle products for the contemporary African woman. The company was founded in 2013 by two Harvard Business School graduates and a high-profile design team, whose vision it was to build Africa's largest and most influential fashion brand; a brand that uses technology as its distribution accelerator, and creates economic opportunities for fashion entrepreneurs along the way. When most people think about the African woman and her 'fashion,' they often think of very traditional and often cliché prints and fabrics. Today's contemporary African woman is however savvier, more exposed and more economically empowered than any other time in her history. Despite this, she is still severely underserved. No indigenous or global brands exist that that cater to her specific tastes, body-type, lifestyle or preferences. The result is the $19 billion being spent overseas per annum on brands that fall shy of her mark; $19 billion of lost re-investment dollars that should be spent on economic, and employment opportunities on the continent. Enter Eve & Tribe! E&T's business model leverages a three-pronged, omnichannel distribution strategy that combines the best of direct-sales, ecommerce, and physical retail merchandising (show-rooms). Where the interplay between e-commerce and physical showrooms ("online-offline") is proven and familiar, our technology enabled direct-sales platform is at the center of our innovation, and method of impact. Through this channel, E&T first recruits, trains, and tools underemployed women, empowers them as independent sellers with personalized clones of our e-commerce site, and affords them products and catalogues as complementary sales tools. Through direct sales, E&T has the potential to penetrate Africa's deep mass-market as no brand has, through low-cost, personalized network sales, whose objective is to drive acquired customers back to our e-commerce and brick & mortar channels. Since launch (Jan 2014), Eve & Tribe has enjoyed tremendous successes. E&T designed, manufactured and sold 12,000 unit, generating revenues of ~$240,000 across Nigeria, Cote d'Ivoire + Senegal. It proved its product efficacy (or award-winning design team's efficacy), its price points, and sold through 100% of its first three collections. Most impressively, it achieved this with near zero dollars spent on marketing given financial resource constraints (launched with seed funding of $350K). E&T is based in Lagos, Nigeria, operates with a team of 15 individuals, has supply chains across Nigeria and China, and an Advisory board that includes the current CEO of Ringier Africa (one of Africa's largest Media Companies) and the former Chairman of Laura Ashley. Most recently, E&T was cited in Vogue.com as a Top-5 African Brand by Chimamanda Adichie, one of the Continent's leading contemporary novelists. At Eve & Tribe we have set out to not only build Africa's largest fashion brand, but also to empower Africa's next generation of female entrepreneurs. #JOINTHETRIBE. Central US HubTran Transportation: Get your back office moving Matt Bernstein, MBA 1993 View team executive summary and 90-second elevator pitch video HubTran Executive Summary: HubTran is tackling the settlement process in trucking and logistics. While freight transportation is an immense industry, back‐office operations have not advanced due to the fragmented, many‐to‐many nature of this industry. Every day hundreds of thousands of truckers, transportation brokers, factoring companies, freight payment firms and shippers collaborate and transact relying on phone, fax, email, and mail. With over a billion transactions per year, these manual processes are incredibly high cost and create error, delay and frustration. The few automation options available are traditional, customized software installations that only the largest companies can afford to build and integrate. And these investments do nothing to improve connectivity with trading partners, which is critical in a transaction‐intensive industry like transportation. HubTran's SaaS platform dramatically simplifies transportation payables, receivables and document management. HubTran's easy‐to‐use, transportation‐specific tools help companies of any size automate and streamline back office operations. Even more importantly, HubTran's portal and push messaging update customers' trading partners and provide a platform for companies to transact and communicate effectively. In effect, HubTran integrates trading partners within specific ecosystems (e.g., carriers‐brokers‐factoring companies in US for‐hire, class‐8 trucking). And while HubTran creates strong network benefits, HubTran sales are based on the value proposition inside a customer's four walls (i.e., success isn't contingent upon future network effects). HubTran deployed to initial beta customers earlier this year and word of mouth is already starting to spread. Because HubTran is pre‐integrated with the leading transportation management and accounting systems, it is plug‐and‐play, enabling customers to realize efficiency benefits on day‐one. And HubTran charges just $0.25 per transaction, removing risk from customers' decisions to trial and adopt. Most importantly, HubTran provides high‐tech engineering for a low‐tech market – highly intuitive, easy to use software that handles ridiculously complicated transactions. Looking ahead, HubTran will become the system of record for freight transactions worldwide. HubTran will have real time data on freight movement, costs and payment patterns with connectivity to transportation companies and their drivers… Incredible assets that can support follow on opportunities in areas such as analytics, factoring, spot markets, and futures. But our immediate focus is practical. We have eight employees and have self‐financed $500K to date. We are raising $1.2MM in April in order to continue product investment and support sales growth. 2015 will see the addition of 100 fanatical customers that love HubTran and will recommend HubTran to their peers, customers and suppliers. HubTran. Get your back office moving. New England LuminOva Medical Technology: Turning the dream of parenthood into a reality Alexandra Dickson, MBA 2013 View team executive summary and 90-second elevator pitch video LuminOva Executive Summary: INFERTILITY—HIGH UNMET NEED Despite the high prevalence of infertility (15% of couples), success rates of in vitro fertilization (IVF) have stagnated at 30% a cycle. The main reason for the low success is that the majority of embryos that humans produce are inviable, and there are no good ways to select the best embryo to implant back into the patient. Currently, an embryologist selects which embryos to implant by using subjective criteria to choose embryos that "look normal," which is not an adequate indicator of health. As a result, success rates vary widely and the majority of embryos implanted via IVF do not create a baby. This leads to patients undergoing multiple cycles of IVF at significant financial and emotional cost. LUMINOVA'S SOLUTION LuminOva aims to increase the success rates of IVF by providing an objective assessment of egg and embryo quality. LuminOva has leveraged discoveries from the Needleman lab at Harvard to create an optical device that can safely take an image of a living egg or embryo. That image non-­‐invasively captures quantitative information about metabolic and morphologic features that are currently invisible. These features are strongly linked to the viability of the cell and can be incorporated into a software algorithm of embryo/egg viability. Our hope is that the LuminOva device can be used to select the most viable embryo to implant, increasing IVF success rates. TEAM Alexandra Dickson: Harvard MBA with consulting and biotechnology background Dan Needleman, PhD: Harvard Associate Professor in Applied Physics Tim Sanchez, PhD: International winner for research in biological physics Manqi Deng, PhD: Over 20 years experience in reproductive biology OUR PROGRESS LuminOva has begun preclinical studies and product development for the technology, and has received non-­‐dilutive grant funding. LuminOva expects to launch its first commercial product in 2019. Southeastern US P2P Cash Financial Services: Saving millions of immigrants billions in money transfer fees Tom Meredith, MBA 1985 View team executive summary and 90-second elevator pitch video P2P Cash Executive Summary: "Send Cash Home Free!" P2P Cash is a "Free" Western Union, delivering free global, mobile money transfers using patent-pending digital currency. With MasterCard, P2P guarantees secure money transfer to over 1.2 billion mobile accounts globally at no cost to the consumer. P2P Cash monetizes this free service, buying foreign currency at interbank rates and delivering at retail rates, grossing ~1.5% on each transaction. Problem: Money transfer is expensive and difficult to deliver in developing countries, particularly in rural areas. Solution: P2P Cash delivers cash directly to bank and mobile accounts for FREE. With key strategic partners, MasterCard and SWIFT, P2P's patent-pending digital currency Instant Money Tokens (IMT) delivers cash to over 1.2 Billion Mobile Wallets and 2 billion bank accounts worldwide at no cost. Revenue Model: P2P derives revenue from the foreign exchange (FX) differential between retail and wholesale FX rates. P2P purchases the delivery currency at wholesale bank rates; buying in bulk with its bank partners. The recipient receives their currency at the same "retail" rate as competing money transfer services. Future Revenue from Big Data: P2P will market new financial services (microfinance/ insurance) to its large global database of mobile wallets created by Free Money Transfer. Competitive Advantages: All P2P competitors charge fees; ONLY P2P offers Free Money Transfer. P2P's IMT digital currency creates significant pricing advantages. Global MasterCard contract enables direct deposit into 1.2 BILLION mobile wallets adding tremendous recipient convenience. Exit Strategy: MasterCard values P2P's token technology as evidenced by our global MasterCard contract. They are a natural potential acquirer. VISA and every major global bank are potential competing acquirers. South Asia Talerang Education: A social business solving the work-readiness crisis that students and organizations face through an innovative model developed at HBS Shveta Raina, MBA 2013 View team executive summary and 90-second elevator pitch video Talerang Executive Summary: "Talerang enabled me to realize my own dreams and empowered me to achieve them." ‐ Rahul Prajapat, student at IIT Bombay   "The programme got him equipped with the overall finishing a student requires before he joins work. In this area he has excelled.He is slowly conquering his fear over public speaking and is developing the confidence to share his ideas." ‐ Sanjay Sharma, father of Yash Sharma, student at HR College, Bombay   "Niraj is a quick learner, has a sharp mind and a positive attitude." -Shailesh Deshpande (Godrej Group) on Niraj Chitnis (St. Xavier's College) Solving a real need: Talerang is redefining and revolutionising the work‐readiness industry through a unique transformation model that was developed as an independent project at Harvard Business School. ~ 60% of students at top colleges in India don't feel ready to enter the work world and organizations are also unhappy with entry‐level talent, leading them to focus on MBA hiring. First‐hand research with students and organisations identified 6 areas to tackle the crisis. Self‐awareness and self‐belief, life vision, communication, working smart (time management, problem solving and ethics), first impressions (grooming and etiquette) and the final transition (resume, interviewing skills, excel, powerpoint and the ability to build connections). Our vision is to impact 200 million college graduates in India by 2020. Key differentiators:   No current solutions offer a premium, end to end college to corporate transition for college graduates. Current job‐site offerings are focused on quantity v/s qualty. At Talerang, we have created a curated marketplace for employers and job seekers, and we work with both students and organisations to bridge the gap. Students undergo learning modules that bridge the work‐readiness gap for them in stages, preparing them uniquely for the work world. Students undergo a proprietary work‐readiness assessment and 360 test designed for college students. Organisations are provided with a premium platform for quality talent matching their skill requirements.   We will be the only provider to provide solutions in regional languages, enabling access to tier‐III cities. Scalable model: We have developed a blended and omni‐channel platform of delivery (with both online and in‐person component). As we scale, our focus will be on scaling the online platform resulting in a 90:10 online:offline split, compared to the current 50:50. We project this scaling to 20 million students by 2020 (still <5% of the Gen Z population in India). While this is currently an India focused business it has potential to scale to other regions easily – especially Africa and China where work‐ readiness is an equally big issue. Demonstrated impact in Year 1: ~2,000 people trained across platforms 90% ratings from students , significantly higher than the 70‐72% industry average 100% of our students are rated work‐ready by companies We have partnered with over 50 organisations We have received media recognition by Times of India, The Education Times, The Economist Intelligence Unit Report, The Smart Manager, The US Consulate (Mumbai) amongst others. Northwestern US Empower Generation Renewable Energy: Empowering women to power the world Lionel Bony, MBA 2006 Deborah Kim, MBA 2006 View team executive summary and 90-second elevator pitch video Empower Generation Executive Summary: THE PROBLEM Every night, 1.3 billion people go without access to electricity. But nobody wants to live in the dark, so most of these families light their homes with dangerous energy sources like kerosene and candles. And while you can imagine what this means for their health and safety, what you may not know is what it costs them. Today, the poorest people in the world are spending up to 22% of their income on energy sources like kerosene. And it's not as if there aren't cheaper options. The real challenge in lighting up developing countries is that you need to go the "last mile" - which means distributing products to customers in remote areas and collecting payments in a simple and reliable way. These are two challenges we've solved at Empower Generation. THE SOLUTION We've found women are the key to distribution. In countries like Nepal women suffer the most from energy poverty. They're the ones collecting fuels and burning them indoors - and so they're ideal to benefit from a transition to clean energy. To date, we've trained nine women entrepreneurs to build their businesses, hire and manage salespeople, and bring solar systems to 12,000 customers across Nepal. The systems our entrepreneurs sell are built using commodity hardware, all of which we source from high-quality, low-cost suppliers. And we're able to sell these systems for less than our customers are paying today. For example, our basic package which includes solar panels, batteries, and LED lights - can be financed by our customers and purchased for just $10/month over 12 months. Starting this year, our customers will also be able to make monthly payments for their solar home systems by sending us a text. And because our systems talk to one another, we can lock and unlock any of them centrally based on payment status. THE OPPORTUNITY The social and economic opportunity here is huge. And we're ready to capitalize on it. In Nepal, our first market, there are currently 3.4m rural households without access to the grid. Which means that, at $10/month, we see a $400 million annual opportunity. When we look at our next market, Myanmar - which has a much larger rural population - that opportunity grows to $1.3 billion. You can imagine how big the market could be across all of emerging Asia. We believe we can scale our model from country to country because of three key factors: We know how to build self-sustaining women-led sales networks We make mobile payments frictionless for our customers with a pay-as-you-go system We can manage all of our systems centrally THE WHY It's amazing how quickly technology can spread in the developing world when it's delivered the right way. And so, just as mobile technology has reached almost every corner of the world, we believe that within a decade, these same communities will power their homes with solar technology. This is the future we're building. FUNDING TO DATE No equity has been raised so far by Empower Generation.

Mid-Atlantic US StreetShares Financial Technology: "Shark Tank" meets Ebay for small business Mickey Konson, MBA 2002 View team executive summary and 90-second elevator pitch video StreetShares Executive Summary: Don't take our word for it: "'Shark Tank' meets eBay for small business" – Washington Business Journal "It was easier to get a loan through StreetShares than the SBA." – Forbes "Businesses can apply online in about 10 minutes." – Entrepreneur Magazine "StreetShares may preview the biggest competitive threat to OnDeck with an auction-style investment model where investors bid down interest rates… " – NASDAQ.com We're solving a huge problem: Our goal at StreetShares is to fund the next great generation of small business owners. We're solving a $137B problem: the lack of fast, fairly-priced small business loans below $100K. Marketplace solution: Businesses make a loan request directly to investors on StreetShares.com. Investors compete to fund any portion of the loan. They set the amount of the loan they want to back and the interest rate they require. The StreetShares marketplace then combines the lowest investor bids to form a single blended-rate loan. StreetShares underwrites and openly bids on every loan on the marketplace, so our interests are aligned with investors. StreetShares is transparency to the max. Affinity matching: StreetShares matches borrowers and investors by shared affinity-groups. Affinity lending lowers costs and increases trust. StreetShares is veteran-owned and veteran-run, and our first affinity group is US military veterans. We've formed the nation's largest coalition of veteran small business organizations. Our exclusive partnerships give us unique access to more than 2.5 million veterans. Additional affinity groups will follow. Serious traction: More than 1,400 businesses have joined StreetShares, and investors have submitted more than 1,700 bids to fund businesses on StreetShares.com. Individual investors have $1.7MM in funds currently on the marketplace, and institutional investors have committed more than $200MM to fund small businesses through StreetShares over the next four years. StreetShares raised a VC-led seed round in May 2014 and is currently funding its A Round. Latin America Fast ReHydration Limited Biotechnology: Faster rehydration, faster relief Gustavo Souss, MBA 2008 View team executive summary and 90-second elevator pitch video Fast ReHydration Limited Executive Summary: Fast Rehydration is a biotech start up that has developed and patented a breakthrough technology for all types of dehydrations. Based on the multiple potential uses of this new technology, this innovative startup could represent a multimillion-dollar business with great social impact. Nowadays dehydration is treated through a mix of salty ingredients and glucose to help increase the water absorption and restore balance. The more salty ingredients, the more water absorption there is. There are no patents, no secret formulas, and no magic ingredients for rehydration, but there is a caveat: the more salty ingredients in a product, the worse the taste, -and adding more sugar won't improve it. At Fast Rehydration, we overcame that obstacle by encapsulating the salty ingredients into nano-particles with three important benefits: better palatability, higher absorption, and faster rehydration. The development is endorsed with FDA registration, a pre-clinical trial and a product that has successfully gone through blind testing. We plan to launch "Hydrolyte", our first product, targeted at children that are at high risk of dehydration resulting from stomach bugs. It's a U$S170 million dollar-market in the US, and we will capture a 30% market share within five years at 70% gross margin through our unique pediatricians campaign. On the social side, Hydrolyte can help UNICEF with the more than 50 millions treatments they donate every year in an attempt to prevent 1.5 million child death resulting from dehydration due to diarrhea. On top of Hydrolyte, we are testing a drink for hypotonic dehydration within the $6 billion dollar sport drink market. Our sport drinks are highly acclaimed by athletes in tennis, NBA, UFC and even the military. Through our innovative platform we have identified, and in some cases already advanced, more than 14 new products, many of them for new patents: from developments for diabetics to drinks with probiotics. Our goal is to grow Fast Rehydration into a $100 million dollar business company in five years through the exploitation of Hydrolyte worldwide, a concentrated or powder line extension for a low cost solution for developing countries, and a hypotonic product for endurance athlete in the sport drink category. While licensing the technology can certainly be attractive to many players (from Coke for Powerade to Abbott for Pedialyte), develop successful in-market products significantly increases the company valuation. Additionally, pharma companies are always eager to acquire new products and particularly technological platforms, and the multiples for biotech companies easily exceed 5x revenues. Last, but not least, there are small successful IPO's for biotech companies in less advanced stages than ours. If you are thirsty for a great investment... with high social impact... don´t look any further.... Fast Rehydration ...is the perfect choice. Europe Intendu Digital Health: Brain rehabilitation, for everyone who needs it, everywhere Son Preminger, MBA 1999 View Team Executive summary and 90-Second Elevator Pitch Video Intendu Executive Summary: The need and market Hundreds of millions of people are left out of our society due to brain dysfunctions caused by brain injury, mental and neurodegenerative disease. These impairments limit the ability for normal and independent living. The treatment and care of these people cost hundreds of billions of dollars per year. Current brain rehabilitation relies on one-on-one therapy sessions that use outdated training tools. Due to the high cost of these sessions, patients receive only a few months of rehabilitation, after which they are left at home without any therapy. This leads to limited recovery and even deterioration. Existing cognitive training software are not suitable for people with brain disorders as they do not adapt dynamically to the needs of the specific person, and they often do not result in daily-life improvement. Solution Intendu developed software that revolutionizes the treatment of people with brain dysfunctions, delivering an effective, accessible and affordable brain training solution. The Intendu brain training software is based on videogames that are designed specifically for brain training. The solution is grounded on key principles derived from scientific research. The patient plays a fun game, interacting with characters and using natural body gestures. We train the brain with natural experiences, to achieve transfer of benefits to real life. The games react and adjust to patient's needs in realtime. The solution uses real-time feedback from an off-the-shelf video camera to enable whole-body interaction and real-time adaptation of the training games. A patent-pending cognitive engine, at the heart of our solution decides at every moment, based on patient's actions and history, what is the best way to stimulate the patient's brain to achieve his rehabilitation goals. Current status and execution plan highlights We are training patients in pilots at leading Israeli rehabilitation institutions with very positive feedback from clinicians and patients. We are in conversation with top US rehabilitation hospitals that that tried our beta product and expressed their desire to work with the Intendu's solution. We also started clinical trial to quantify the effectiveness of the training. Intendu's first commercial product will be launched in Q3 2015. Our product will be delivered as a software service to hospitals, clinics as well as to people with brain dysfunction at home their home environment. Intendu is supported private investors, many of which are social impact investors. Last year our company was selected to participate in the Microsoft Accelerator. Intendu has recruited key opinion leaders to its Scientific Advisory Board, including Nathan Zasler, the head of the International Brain Injury Association. Executive Team Dr. Son Preminger, Founder and CEO, is a neuroscientist with 13 years experience in the cognitive training and rehabilitation space, broad experience in the software industry in product management, business development and R&D positions. Holds Phd in Neureoscience and an MSc in computer science. Dr. Barak Blumenfeld, co-founder and CTO, is an expert in machine learning algorithms and data analysis. He has a PhD in neuroscience and computer science and led development of optimization software products. Yuval Bar-Gil, our executive chairman, is a successful entrepreneur who founded and headed a healthcare company serving over 18 thousand hospitals and clinics worldwide. Ran Lehr, VP Development, has 10 years of experience in leading development of web and cloud products, including gaming and health applications. Canada Maerospace Big Data Predictive Analytics: 10X better ship tracking and predictive analytics helps customers make money, save lives, guard borders, and protect the environment Eric Meger, MBA 1984 View team executive summary and 90-second elevator pitch video Maerospace Executive Summary: Maerospace enables maritime authorities, fleet owners and logistics companies to track all large ships anywhere in the world with 5-10 times the accuracy of current systems. Our patent-pending predictive analytics services fix the inherent delays and incompleteness of existing, satellitebased data sources. Our first offering, TimeCaster, delivers accurate current and near future positions every 10 minutes for over 120,000 vessels. By accurately predicting behavior, it can alert customers (via email or SMS) to unexpected behavior faster and more accurately than any other system: Predicted entry into restricted area even if AIS is turned off Automatic detection of Doppelgangers (different ships transmitting the same identity) Detection and tracking of Dark Targets Ability to continue to track original vessel's movements after they start to spoof their position Detect changes of destination - aids in predicting both commodity and transportation rates The total addressable market across 6 defined segments is estimated at $2.3B per year. Maerospace has made considerable progress: our system is fully functional and easily customizable; we have won our first 6-figure government procurement with other proposals pending; and seven partners have signed agreements with us or are in negotiations. The company founder is one of the world's leading experts in satellite ship tracking and has won awards for his expertise in strategic alliances. Each management team member has more than 25 years' experience. Recurring revenue projections call for growth to $46M over 5 years, reaching profitability in year 3. Scalability of service delivery and leverage of partnerships to grow sales enables profits of $10M in year five. Investor exit opportunities include sale of the company or individual business units or a possible public listing to provide liquidity. The company seeks $3M in Series-A funding. Asia-Pacific Raywon Nano-Science Inc. Nano Materials: The 3M in nano-material field Mike Liu, MBA 2014 View team executive summary and 90-second elevator pitch video Raywon Nano-Science Inc. Executive Summary: Overview: Raywon is an advanced materials company that focus on providing patented nanoscale materials for various industries. Our technologies can change people's daily life in many ways. For example, we provide proprietary energy absorbing materials for industries where impact safety is a concern, such as automobile, sports protective gear, military and defence, and electronics protection. Our other technologies include the world's only low-grade heat recovery system, anti-corrosion coating, and 3D self-assmble flexible semiconductor. Most of our technologies are based on 10+ years of research on nano-material field of our technical founder Team: Technical founder: Xi Chen, Columbia University tenue professor, Harvard Solid Mechanics PhD, Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) recipient, NSF CAREER Award recipient, Sia-Nemat Nasser Early Career Award recipient, Yound Investigator Medal, SES, Thomas J.R. Young Investigator Award, ASME Business founder: Mike Liu, HBS 2014, previous startup experience in California, Ex- Mckinsey Market: Nano-sorb: The first industry we are going to penetrate is the sports protectionindustry. The product lines include helmet for American football, ice hockey, lacrosse, motorcycle, race car; running shoes, and other protection gears like knee pads and shoulder pads. The total addressable market size in sports is ~$ 243mm （US market only) The second industry we are going to tackle is the automobile industry. We will first focus on the protection of battery set of electric car (i.e. Tesla) as entry angle, then project into traditional car's market to improve their impact safety. Market size for this industry is ~$355 mm (US market only). In addition to these two industry, Nano-sorb can be used in many other industries, such as military and defense, telecom, logistic, construction, electronics, and medical equipment. The total market size for Nano-sorb is ~$840 mm (US market only) low-grade heat recovery. Using similar nano-porous proprietary material, we can harvest and transform thermal energy into electrical energy directly, a technology that the world has never seen before. We have completed the lab scale testing, and currently looking for strategic partners to do a mid-scale pilot project (~50 kW). The estimated market in US alone is $2 trillion a year Traction: Jan, 2015: Received $1.5 mm angel funding from two prominent angel investors in China - Feb, 2015: Started our pilot project with Sinopec, using our products in their Sichuan gas field - Feb, 2015: Established strategic partnership with SABIC, one of the world's largest chemical companies to evaluate the possibility to use our products in their manufacturing plants Texas SureSpot Parking: Your personal parking assistant Omri Shafran, OPM 43 View team executive summary and 90-second elevator pitch video SureSpot Executive Summary: Solution Management: Omri Shafran- CEO & Founder Ofir Sharon – CoFounder/ VP of Development Roy Daya– CTO Angela Eubanks – CFO Megan Bentley – VP of Sales Industry: Facilities Services Number of Employees: 9 Financing Sought:  $10M Use of Funds: Our funds will be utilized for continued research and development, purchasing inventory and marketing efforts. Mission: SureSpot is revolutionizing the smart-parking market with a best-of-breed, comprehensive parking solution, enabling the capture of big, live data.  The utilization of license plate recognition technology and mobile monitoring and payment features grants the ability to know who is in a parking facility and when they are there.  A comprehensive offering of hardware, parking management software and mobile application automates any off-street or on-street parking facility efficiently and at its maximum capacity, while capturing names, zip codes, gender, make/model of vehicles and coupon redemptions to better understand motorist demographic.  This in turn, generates new revenue opportunities to complement the parking facility's business model and brand, while providing the ultimate parking experience for the motorist.  SureSpot:  Your Personal Parking Assistant Business Description:  SureSpot's smart parking system offers an automated guidance solution, which allows motorists to pre-book their exact parking space within a parking facility and offers superior inventory control and back-end parking management solutions for owners/operators.  With an offering of hardware, parking management software and smartphone application, SureSpot can validate who is in a parking facility and when they are there.  This relates to both on and off street parking scenarios.  This is a valuable tool for owners/operators/municipalities in regards to security, accurate financial reporting, over-stay parking violators and facility occupancy/vacancy  availabilities, while also offering the opportunity to delineate payment services by specific spaces or sell VIP spaces to the highest bidders. For example, a motorist pre-books an exact parking space within a parking garage with the SureSpot Smartphone Application (receives a QR code), the SureSpot website (prints a paper ticket with barcode or is emailed a QR code) or directly from the parking garage company website (prints a paper ticket with barcode or is emailed a QR code).  The motorist then pulls into a SureSpot parking facility and presses the touch-screen  Park in Peace Entrance Terminal to dispense a parking ticket to meet their specific parking needs (handicap, expectant mother,  VIP,  etc.) or scans  their  pre-booked  reservation  QR code/barcode.    Simultaneously,  SureSpot's  Park  Protector  License  Plate Recognition Cameras are scanning the customer's vehicle license plate.  The dispensed parking ticket reveals the exact parking space the motorist  is to utilize. The ticket also includes  local merchant  coupons  and promotions  for the motorist  to redeem  while parked in the garage.   The Park Patrol Gate Barrier now opens, allowing the motorist to enter the facility and drive to their assigned parking space. Upon parking, the Park Bot Spot Recognition Cameras (located above each parking space) capture live images and video of the vehicle and license plate, therefore verifying if the motorist parked in their assigned parking space.   If the motorist fails to park in the assigned space, the SureSpot Management  Software communicates  the images and video from the Park Bot back to the Park in Peace Entrance Terminal.  The previously assigned parking space is now deemed as vacant for the next motorist entering the parking facility. When the motorist returns to the garage they can easily find their vehicle by referencing  the parking space assignment  printed on their ticket or by accessing the Pedestrian Navigation within the SureSpot smartphone application.   Once in their vehicle, the motorist pulls up to the Pay to Pass Exit Terminal.   An additional Park Protector License Plate Recognition Camera scans the license plate of the vehicle. The motorist makes a secure payment and the Park Patrol Gate Barrier opens, allowing the motorist to leave the parking garage.  This is just one of the numerous  scenarios,  the SureSpot system offers with their robust collection  of automated  technologies  to service every parking facility and their needs. Revenue is based upon an industry-first,  Pay Per Car model, meaning the parking facility owner/operator  will pay SureSpot each time a vehicle  enters  the  parking  facility  and  SureSpot  will  maintain,  service  and  manage  the  entire  offering  for  the  life  of  the  five  year contractual  client agreement.   Pay Per Car is determined  with three calculations:   Divide the total cost of the project by the number of months for SureSpot's return on investment.  Multiply the number of parking spaces, daily turnover rate and parking days in the calendar year and divide this number by 12.   Take the first calculation divided by the second, which will represent the fee for the Price Per Car revenue model. The underlying value to SureSpot's solution, is the capture of BIG data in real time.  The benefits are endless when considering the ability to sync with law enforcement to track criminal offenders, major car manufacturers to communicate ownership of used car sales, tow truck companies to charge over-stay parking violators, etc.  Combined with the tracking of local merchant coupon redemptions (located on each ticket) to better understand  the motorists buying motives, SureSpot isn't just a parking management  company, but rather a collector of powerful, sellable data. Company Background: SureSpot Inc. is a parking technology company and is being brought to market by an industry savvy, highly experienced and dedicated team.  Omri Shafran, Founder/CEO, is an astute, well-seasoned business professional. He is also the CEO of Blue Bay Construction and of the Optimum Group, a real estate investment firm.  Ofir Sharon (CoFounder/VP of Development) and Roy Daya (CTO) are all highly experienced in technology development.  SureSpot has already established sales, marketing and technology support teams.  SureSpot's founders have invested $350,000 of their own money into the research and development of the technology. SureSpot is currently seeking an investment of $10M for continued research and development, inventory purchases and marketing efforts. SureSpot is actively running in Houston, TX parking facilities and has acquired a signed contract NRG Stadium (the nations 5th largest stadium, host of the 2017 Super Bowl, 26,000+ parking spaces) and is in negotiations with other notable clients, such as Stanford University, Chicago's United Center, Standard Parking and Park One. Products/Services: Parking Facility Owner/Operator/Municipality Value Propositions: 1.      Increases security by knowing who is in the parking facility and when they are there in real time 2.      Ability to sync with local law enforcement for criminal offender alerts 3.      Fully automated hardware, which eliminates cash-handling theft and decreases overhead by retiring labor force 4.      Instantaneously shift parking rates based on demand, much like Uber 5.      Reliable record of vehicle count for reconciliation of financial revenue reports 6.      Eliminates lost revenue from overstay parking violators 7.      Creates a new revenue opportunity by selling premium parking spaces (VIP, Expectant Mother, Family Parking, etc.) 8.      Generates revenue from merchant coupon sales printed on every ticket while prolonging the motorist park time 9.      Generates revenue from online reservations 10.  Boosts parking facility website traffic enhancing SEO when offering reservation bookings. 11.  Easily check the availability (occupancy and vacancy) and parking space history of each parking space in real time with SureSpot Management Software 12.  Deplete the amount of traffic congestion within the parking facility 13.  Fully customizable and flexible system to fit the needs of the facility 14.  Offers a simple and outstanding parking experience for the motorist 15.  Capture BIG, LIVE data: names, zip codes, gender, make/model of vehicles and coupon redemptions to better understand motorist demographic 16.  SureSpot has the ability to be 100% GREEN if granted permission by the parking facility Motorist Value Propositions: 1.      Ability to pre-book/reserve an exact parking space within a parking facility 2.      Ability to reserve premium/specialized  parking spaces (handicapped, VIP, expectant mother, etc.) 3.      Easy to use on-site, touchscreen terminals with 24/7 live video support 4.      Know exactly which space to park the vehicle and eliminate the search for the vehicle upon returning 5.      Redeem local merchant discounts within the area/venue of where you are parking 6.      Effortless location detection of vehicle within parking facility 7.      Peace of mind with safe and secure payment options Technologies: SureSpot has already begun the process of establishing our brand as the perfect parking management solution for both parking facility owners/operators/municipalities and motorists.  This is accomplished by manufacturing our own equipment, developing our own parking management software and by providing our own mobile reservation platform.  We have patents pending for our parking technology and algorithm, which ensures the highest parking efficiency possible.   Combined with exceptional client relationship management and superior customer service for the motorist, the SureSpot offering delivers an unparalleled parking experience. Markets: Our primary target markets are operators and owners of paid parking facilities (including garages, surface lots, stadiums, amusement parks and airports) and municipalities.  Our secondary target market includes parking facilities that are not commonly generating revenue for their parking structures and therefore converting the property so that it can do so, such as shopping malls or office and residential buildings.  Based upon more than 40,000 parking facilities, the market size in the United States is worth $18B with a growth rate of 3% annually.  According to statistics from the National Parking Association (NPA) and the US Census Bureau, the top five states with parking facilities are California, New York, Texas, Florida and Illinois.  These states include 50% of all parking facilities and generate more than 51% of the revenue in the United States. According to the NPA's 2013-2014 Parking in America Industry Rate Study found that "More than 40% of all survey respondents reported increased demand for parking services". Distribution Channels: SureSpot will scale with direct face-to-face sales by utilizing their local account managers in the Houston and Chicago markets.  Within the US markets, SureSpot will engage 5 local agents in 2015 to facilitate sales from A to Z for 5% of the monthly residual income, and has already signed a contract for the New England territory.  Globally, SureSpot will scale in 2015 by supporting 5 Distributors who will purchase the equipment at a 30% margin and pay 8 % of the residual income to SureSpot USA in return for technical and marketing support. Competition:   There is no direct competition, as no other parking services offers the features of SureSpot.  We are the sole parking provider to offer equipment, software, mobile application and management of our offerings while directing motorists to their exact parking space.  Our indirect competitors within the hardware/software vertical include SkiData Inc., Amano McGann Inc., Scheidt & Bachmann, and Digital Payment Technologies.  Our indirect competitors within the mobile application platform include Parking Panda, Spot Hero and Park Jockey. Southwestern US Veam Entertainment: Empowering content creators to thrive Justin Hakuta, MBA 2011 Hiroshi Uchikoga, MBA 1994 View team executive summary and 90-second elevator pitch video

Veam

Executive Summary:

Veam provides online content creators (creators) with free personalized mobile apps to engage, grow and monetize their fans. From personal trainers, stylists, musicians, home cooks and beyond, our mission is to enable creators to make a living doing what they love.

To date, Veam apps have been downloaded over a million times working with creators in the fitness, music, beauty and sports verticals.

Although there are many benefits to today's affordable content creation and free distribution environment enabled by platforms like Youtube, Instagram and Vine, the reality is it's hard for creators to effectively earn a return on the sizeable online audiences they're attracting.

Tapping into a $14 billion market opportunity, Veam aims to solve this problem by giving away our mobile app technology to creators for free, and then splitting revenue based on exclusive content they provide to their fans through their personalized Veam app. In this way, Veam taps into the latent support and willingness to pay fans have for their favorite creators when given the opportunity.

Having vetted our initial product and raised a pre-seed round of $270k in 2013, we are now looking to raise a seed round to increase the number of creators using Veam apps, starting with the Youtube community, as well as identifying how to further engage and monetize fans to better support creators.

Resources

PITCHING TO VENTURE CAPITALISTS? LEARN FROM AN EXPERT
Wednesday, April 6, 2016, 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. ET
Ray Rothrock (MBA 1988), Partner Emeritus at Venrock

Are you pitching-or getting ready to pitch-a new business idea? Sounds easy, but it is complicated and tricky. Join Ray Rothrock (MBA 1988), Partner Emeritus at Venrock, as he shares lessons from his more than 25 years of experience in the venture capital business in Silicon Valley. Ray will share insights from his experiences with-both giving and hearing-over 10,000 investment presentations. During this webinar you will learn:

• An insider's perspective on why some approaches work and some do not,
• How to avoid the classic mistakes, and
• The essential components of a killer close.
  
  

DESIGN THINKING AND INNOVATIVE PROBLEM SOLVING
Thursday, May 19, 2016, 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. ET
Srikant M. Datar, Arthur Lowes Dickinson Professor of Accounting

In their book, Rethinking the MBA: Business Education at a Crossroads, Professors Srikant Datar and David Garvin and researcher Patrick Cullen identified creative and innovative thinking as an essential skill for managers operating in a world of rapidly evolving product and business models and ever-increasing complexity. In this talk, Professor Datar will describe how managers can develop design thinking and innovative problem-solving skills. These skills include the ability to gain deep insights about users (the core of design thinking); to define and reframe problems; and to overcome fixedness in thinking to generate, develop, and implement novel and effective solutions. Professor Datar will also discuss how managers can build innovative organizations, identify innovative individuals, form innovative teams, and nurture innovative cultures. 

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