Two student teams from the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh have hit the entrepreneurial jackpot with their new business ideas.
UW Oshkosh students Jordan Rhodes, Jordan Mather and Sean Baumgartner were recently accepted into the Ideadvance Seed Fund Cohort which will start in September and run for a total of 12 weeks. This cutting edge cohort will provide each student team with intensive entrepreneurship training, industry specific mentors and grant based seed funding of up to $25,000 to be used toward their businesses.
Their journey started less than six months ago when they were accepted into the inaugural 10 week start-up accelerator program offered by the Alta Resources Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (CEI) at UW Oshkosh. The 10-week program provided them, and eight other UW Oshkosh student teams, with local mentors, peer accountability and a bit of seed funding to help test the validity of their business ideas. This new opportunity will help push them to the next level and beyond.
Colleen Merrill, executive director of the Alta Resources CEI, is thrilled that these two teams made the cut.
“Both teams are extremely passionate about their businesses,” she said. “And they both solve such big problems in today’s health industry.”
Colleen is also excited about what this means for the future of the accelerator program.
“To have this kind of success early on really shows that UW Oshkosh students have what it takes to succeed as entrepreneurs. It also shows that our accelerator program is at an elite level and can truly help students take their ideas and turn them into thriving businesses.”
Only 11 teams from across the state were selected to participate in the highly competitive Ideadvance Seed Fund Cohort, and were chosen based on the potential of the business idea and its founding team. The goal of the Ideadvance Seed Fund is to provide “gap funding” for UW System faculty, staff and student entrepreneurs. The funding is provided to help start-up teams interview potential customers, validate their business ideas, and reach the first stages of revenue. This innovate program is managed by the Division of Entrepreneurship and Economic Development at the University of Wisconsin Extension.
“I just can’t wait to get my product into schools,” said Jordan Rhodes, a current graduate student pursuing his MBA at UW Oshkosh. “It’s been such an incredible journey up to this point and just seems to get better and better.”
Jordan Rhodes is the founder of Healthier Youth L.L.C, a Web application that allows elementary school teachers to stream Common Core enriched exercise videos in their classrooms and gives students additional access to these videos from home computers, tablets, or smartphones. He believes this app will allow teachers to offer fun exercises to their students without having to worry about the increased pressure of the Common Core Standards.
“Our goal is to create synergy between academics and physical activity,” he said.“We all know that today’s youth aren’t physically active enough during the school day, yet teachers are struggling to find the time due to the Common Core requirements–so we created a way to blend these two extremely important activities together.”
His program will be piloted in more than a dozen elementary schools in northeast Wisconsin this fall.
The other Oshkosh team that made it into the cohort, Health Connection L.L.C, is comprised of two undergraduate students pursuing their computer science degrees–Mather and Baumgartner. Their product is a Web application that chiropractors and physical therapists can use to provide their clients with rehabilitative exercises that can be performed from home and even tracks progress and pain levels along the way. The students knew, from experience, that most chiropractors and physical therapists have an inefficient post appointment process that leaves patients with recommended exercises in the form of a hard to follow stack of paper. Their solution allows patients to log on, see what exercises were assigned to them, how to properly perform the exercises, and then lets them send feedback on pain levels to their chiropractors or physical therapists.
“It’s a much more streamlined process that provides a real-time feedback loop,” Mather said. “It’s safer and easier for the patient, and gives the care provider much more accurate information.”
This team will also be piloting their solution throughout northeast Wisconsin in the coming months.
The Ideadvance Seed Fund Cohort will unlock resources for them from across the state and will offer the opportunity for additional funding in the future–provided they successfully complete the program.
“We know there’s a lot of pressure on us right now,” Rhodes said. “Aside from this we have full course loads, jobs and a bit of a social life we have to maintain–but we wouldn’t have made it this far if we weren’t passionate about what we’re creating.”
To learn more about these teams, or track their progress, visit the Alta Resources Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation website. Or, follow them on Facebook at www.facebook.com/alta-resources-cei.
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