Computer science major John Chou (at left) is slated to graduate next month, and he is one of the seven students on hand to accept 2015 Zahnn Prizes. The awards are organized by the Moxie Center for Student Entrepreneurship and held in The Basement facility for student startups, with competing teams all coming from the Moxie Center Incubator. This year's awards, which doubled compared to last year, went to five startups, including two in Division I (newly admitted companies) and Division II (previous competitors that are still in the incubator).
Chou and communication senior Joy Sampoonachot (pictured far right with other Zahn Prize winners and judges) represented the CSE-based Cocoon Cam startup, which was one of three winning companies in Division II. The company plans to market a camera-based system using computer vision, wireless equipment and video analytics software to monitor the health and activity of infants without having to wear an activity tracker. Breathing, heart rate, temperature as well as audio and video of the baby can all be derived from the Cocoon Cam's video feed. Chou (the startup's iOS developer) and Sampoonachot (user interface-user experience designer on the team) accepted on behalf of Cocoon Cam, which split $15,000 in prize money with other winning startups in the "veteran" division: Aqua Design Innovations and Tri-D Dynamics. In Division I, the two winners were Ganesh Elie of Slithr (a wireless-equipped system to motorize skate longboards) and Josh Cohen of Trainio (an app called SpeedTrainer to help athletes manage their training regimen), who shared in the $5,000 prize money for Division I.
A total of 12 startups made presentations to the jury consisting of serial entrepreneur Martha Dennis, San Diego Venture Group president Mike Krenn and Jeff Draa, president of Tech Coast Angels.
Learn more about Cocoon Cam.
Read more about the 2015 Zahn Prize Competition on the Jacobs School of Engineering blog.