Diagnostics-For-All, a non-profit venture aiming to provide low-cost diagnostic tools to global health workers, won the MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition last night.
It’s been a week of business plan and entrepreneurship prizes, as we have chronicled in a series of articles. But the 19-year-old 100K competition is the granddaddy of them all. Organizers say the event has spurred the creation of more than 85 companies with a combined market capitalization of $10 billion-plus—and it has trained hundreds of other would-be entrepreneurs. All teams have to include at least one MIT member.
This year, the competition took on a new form, splitting into seven industry tracks: astro/aerospace, biotech, development, energy, mobile, products and services, and Web 2.0/IT. Last night the seven track winners (see list below), each of which took home at least 10K for winning its sector, vied for the grand prize.
Diagnostics-For-All, built around patent-pending technology developed in the lab of Harvard professor (and Xconomist) George Whitesides—himself a highly successful serial entrepreneur—is out to create a “new generation of diagnostic devices microfabricated and patterned in paper,” according to a press release. The technology is meant to enable tools for diagnosing ailments including liver, kidney, and metabolic diseases that are easy to use, cheap, portable, and disposable—and therefore well suited for use in the developing world. Judges picking the venture as the competition’s best included Desh Deshpande, co-founder and chairman of Sycamore Networks, and Bob Metcalfe of Polaris Venture partners.
Another winner last night was Covalent Solar, which had already won the energy track of the competition. Based on its live elevator pitch, the team took home the $10,000 prize for audience favorite—as measured by cell phone voting.
Here’s our list of track winners and their prizes:
Mobile — Ubitrack ($35,000)
Energy — Covalent Solar ($20,000)
Astro/Aero — InAct Labs ($10,000)
Biotech — Diagnostics-for-All ($10,000)
Development — ClickDiagnostics ($20,000)
Web 2.0/IT — CyberAnalytix ($10,000)
Products and Services — MyFaktory ($10,000)
