MIT $100K competition awards its top prize

The winning team of the MIT 100K Entrepreneurship Competition. From left: Krishna Yeshwant, Roozbeh Ghaffari, Hayat Sindi, Carol Waghorne, Jon Puz, and Gilbert Tang. Photo was supplied by MIT. Photo credit: Jeremy Gilbert

A team proposing diagnostic-tool technology that aims to improve the health care management of patients in developing countries won the $100,000 prize at the MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition awards ceremony held last night on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

This year’s winner is Diagnostics-For-All, a not-for-profit that seeks to deliver affordable point-of-care diagnostic solutions to the global medical community; based on patent-pending technology developed in chemist George Whitesides’ laboratory at Harvard University, DFA’s offering will serve as a platform for simple, portable, low-cost, and easy-to-dispose diagnostic tools for developing countries, the competition's organizers said.

Now in its 19th year, the MIT $100K serves as an economic barometer for emerging markets that are getting funded by venture capitalists. Since its launch, the competition has led to the creation of more than 85 companies with an aggregate market capitalization of approximately $10 billion, the competition's organizers said.

In the competition's "elevator pitch" category, honors went to Convalent Solar, organizers said.

Covalent Solar won the competition’s first ever $10,000 audience prize.

"Using audience response system technology provided by $100K mobile semi-finalist team Poll Everywhere, the crowd morphed into a brainy version of American Idol, texting their votes in immediate response to the seven finalists’ public summaries of their offerings," organizers said in a press release. "Covalent Solar’s product is an MIT-invented solar concentrator photovoltaic technology, based on the redirection of light using dyes, which is simpler and less expensive than existing methods."
(By Chris Reidy, Globe staff)