Think Before You Speak

Voiceless Communication Wins at Entrepreneurial Forum

A student venture from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign won top honors at the Fourth Annual Spirit of Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development (S.E.E.D.) Collegiate Venture Forum at the Andalucia Hotel March 2-3. A panel of experienced judges chose Ambient Corporation as Best Emerging Venture Investment Opportunity for the biotechnology firm’s development of a new form of voiceless communication.

There were nine semifinal ventures this year, including: Advanced Wireless Solutions LLC from Loyola Marymount University; AID-N Corporation from Johns Hopkins University with the Universities of Virginia and Maryland; BEM Synergy Inc. from Washington State University; DineSense Inc. from University of San Francisco; GeoNexxus Corporation from Carnegie-Mellon University; Lyons Air LLC from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University; MAP*D Net Inc. from John Carroll University; and Phoenix Pharmaceuticals Inc. from the University of Georgia.

David Newton, professor of entrepreneurial finance at Westmont, is founder and president of TechKnowledge Point, which launched the S.E.E.D competition to put top collegiate entrepreneurship business plans in front of a world-class panel of evaluators, early stage investors and product development specialists. Newton also started the entrepreneurship program at Westmont.

The forum featured keynote addresses by Dr. Yulun Wang, founder and CEO of InTouch Health, John Couch, Apple vice president for global education marketing, and Ali Velshi, CNN’s senior business anchor.

Ambient’s voiceless communication device, called the AudeoTM, acquires neurological signals from the brain and translates them into speech for people who have lost the ability to speak due to disease or injury. Ambient’s mission is to improve the quality of life for the disabled by restoring functionality through a wireless interface with the mind.

AID-N was voted Second Best Emerging Venture Investment Opportunity and also won the Entrepreneurial Vision Award sponsored by Dr. Doug Katsev and the Sansum Laser Eye Center.

AID-N will produce a cost-effective wireless monitor to provide time-critical, hospital-wide, 24-7 patient status updates to healthcare providers anytime and anywhere.

Each year, the SEED National Collegiate Forum boasts some of the best and most experienced panels of screeners and judges in the country. The vision of SEED is to help top collegiate ventures secure capital funding. More than 40 qualified investors saw the presentations, and several of the ventures are already in preliminary contact with potential investors.

This year’s judges were: Stender Sweeney, Pasadena Angels; Barry Fay, Aquaflo; Christy Sulzbach, attorney; Dave Goldmuntz, Angel Investor; Mark Palmer, InRoads Technology; Ron Meritt, Meritt International; Dick Hale, Hale-Estrada Associates; Dan Corry, Agility Capital; Dave Odell, MedBridge Development; Rick Ifland, Atera Partners; Scott McOwen, SoCo Group; Jason Spievak, Great Pacific Capital; Robert Heavner, Vanguard Credit; and Chip Gierhart, The Gierhart Group.

For more information, please contact Newton at (805) 455-7813 or by e-mail at info@techknowledgepoint.com.