CSE junior Sneha Jayaprakash and her team of a dozen fellow students, most from CSE, in the social startup Bystanders to Upstanders, were one of three teams that each took $10,000 in prize money in the USD Social Innovation Challenge awards handed out on Friday evening. A total of 15 finalists made their closing pitches to a jury of leading corporate and non-profit executives, including representatives from Qualcomm Ventures and Project Concern International. The Bystanders to Upstanders (B2U) mobile app connects socially conscious organizations and volunteers to promote community service through the power of social media and game design.
For B2U founder Jayaprakash, winning awards has become almost second nature. She originally started B2U after winning Microsoft's YouthSpark Challenge for Change in 2013 and putting the $2,500 prize money to work building a team with other CSE students, including Winnie Xu (pictured far left, with Jayaprakash following the May 1 award ceremony). B2U was subsequently awarded $10,000 from Microsoft's Imagine Fund, which also promotes the venture through its "My Startup in 60 Seconds" online pitch via Microsoft's Channel 19 website. The venture also won smaller amounts from the UC San Diego Social Innovation Fund and the Zahn Prize Social Innovation Open Challenge, and the team got coaching from Microsoft technical mentors, courtesy of the Imagine Fund.
In the finals, the app competed against six other social startups from San Diego universities other than the University of San Diego (USD). A second UC San Diego entry also took home a $10,000 prize. The Engineering World Health team of bioengineering students was honored for its plan to develop a low-cost HIV test..
Private USD teams were judged in a separate category, which competed for the largest prizes of the challenge hosted by USD's Center for Peace and Commerce. The biggest cash award of $17,000 went to a USD team called H2gO, led by Parker Cohn. He pitched a water purification system that can run on solar or human power. The system is for small communities in need of potable water when regular supplies are cut off in the wake of an emergency or disaster.