2018-19 Innovation in Action Winners

Congratulations to our 2018 winners and finalists!

IIA: Public Health winners:

Grand Prize, $10,000 AND Audience Choice Award, $1,000: Busy Box

Busy box makes the tools for having safe sex convenient, affordable, and accessible to all. Each busy box contains high-quality sex supplies and educational resources that are personalized to the customer’s needs, and shipped right to their front door.
IIA-BusyBox

Team Members:

  • Kayla Carter, School of Public Health
  • Alison Elgass, College of LSA
  • Sarah Mason, School of Education
  • Monica Smolinski, School of Public Health

Second Prize, $7,500: First Five Med

The First Five trains everyday people how to save a life in the first five minutes of a medical emergency while the ambulance is on the way. Workshops focus on hands-on learning and medical scenarios to make training realistic and memorable. Learn more at www.firstfivemed.com. Anyone can save a life.

IIA-FirstFive

Team Members:

  • Michael Cantley, School of Public Health + School of Information
  • Alex Farthing, Medical School
  • Eddie Ford, Postbac MEDPREP
  • Stephen Hobson, Medical School
  • Haley McCalpin, Postbac MEDPREP
  • Kelly Wheeler, School of Education

Third Prize, $5,000 AND Audience Choice Award, $1,000: hEARt

hEARt aims to improve mental health on campus by creating a mobile app centered around chat therapy. They hope to design an effective resource for students that makes them feel comfortably connected and more involved in their own self-care.

IIA-hEARt

Team Members:

  • Aastha Dharia, College of Literature, Science, and the Arts
  • Aria Thakore, College of Engineering
  • Sheily Shah, College of Literature, Science, and the Arts
  • Swathi Sampath, School of Public Health

Public Health finalists also included:

  • 3Peas
    3 Peas is a mobile app that works as your virtual kitchen assistant, simplifying at-home cooking connecting you with registered dietitians to personalize nutrition based on your health and lifestyle needs. Designed for individuals with chronic disease, 3 Peas makes it easy to plan, purchase, and prepare food for your health.

    • John Barbour, Ross School of Business
    • Lili Bentley, School of Public Health + Ross School of Business
    • Nikhil Kalambur, Ross School of Business + School of Information
    • Sarah Rubin, School of Public Health
  • DonumDonUM is a web based platform to increase organ donation registration rates at theUniversity of Michigan, and eventually nationwide.
    • Rebecca Grossman-Kahn, Medical School + Ross School of Business
    • Kashvi Gupta, School of Public Health
    • Kosuke Kikuchi, Ross School of Business
    • Bruna de Souza Oewel, Stamps School of Art and Design
    • Amanda Wasserman, College of LSA

To read about all the teams that competed this year, visit our Teams page.

IIA: Education winners:

Grand Prize, $10,000 AND Audience Choice Award, $1,000: Dough

Dough is an education text service linked to tools that assist students make more informed student loan decisions.

IIA-Dough

Team Members:

  • Catalina Kaiyoorawongs, Ross School of Business + School of Education
  • Yahya Bajwa, Ford School of Public Policy

Second Prize, $7,500: 1Team

1Team is building an intelligent personal tutor that knows what the student knows, does not ever let them forget it, and teaches them new things they are capable of easily grasping. This will help students to learn concepts for the long-term, and help them succeed in their academic work, or in the job market.

IIA-1Team

Team Members:

  • Paul Hur, School of Information
  • Iman Heckehzaare, School of Information

Third Prize, $5,000: ScholarFit

ScholarFit is a platform that provides just-in-time feedback to college students. Using self-reported in conjunction with university-collected data, gamification techniques are used to display student progress, unlock badges based on academic activities, make comparisons to similar students from current & previous years, predict outcomes and make recommendations.

IIA-ScholarFit

Team Members:

  • Matthew Nelson, Design Science

Education finalists also included:

  • Fyltr
    Deceptive information is everywhere around us- news articles, social media, even product labels. Fyltr is committed to improving information literacy in children. Through fun and engaging games, we build the fundamental skills necessary to critically evaluate information.

    • Deepti Bettampadi, School of Public Health
    • Sophia Chiu, School of Information
    • Juan Marquez, School of Public Health
    • Jonathan Overstreet, School of Education
    • Jasmine Wang, Law School
  • UniventuresUniventures is a networking and skills-sharing web platform where U-M students across disciplines can easily connect and collaborate together on projects. All students will be provided with an online portfolio populated with project details, their role on the team, and the impact they had upon completion of the projects.
    • Young Eun Kim, School of Information
    • Alex Park, Law School

To read about all the teams that competed this year, visit our Teams page.