Student-led startups Hook, vHAB and miPS were selected to participate in the UW Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship’s 2015 Jones + Foster Accelerator program. The program helps students bring their startup from idea to reality by providing mentorship, a framework for defining measurable milestones and the opportunity to earn up to $25,000 in follow-on funding.
29 businesses have completed the program since it began in 2010 – and 25 are still in business today. The 10 companies accepted into the 2015 Jones + Foster Accelerator cohort range from clean technology to healthcare innovation to peer-to-peer commerce.
Hook, led by Electrical Engineering Ph.D. student Rahil Jain, who works with BioE’s Dr. Barry Lutz, is a smart home hub that makes inexpensive remote controlled electrical outlets and bulb sockets “smart”. Hook allows consumers to program and automate home devices via smartphone, enabling home automation on a budget.
vHAB, led by BioE Ph.D. students Brian Mogen and Tyler Libey, integrates advances in motion capture and electromygraphy to improve the understanding of arm function during recovery, and offers rehabilitation facilities the ability to deliver quality patient treatment anytime, anywhere.
miPS, led by BioE Ph.D. student Alex Jiao, aims to become the first consumer stem cell generation and cell banking service. The service aims to help consumers store their adult cells to prevent cellular aging, use banked cells for therapies in the future and contribute to biomedical research by donating their cells to academic or nonprofit research institutions.