3-D Printed Arms, Personalized Hotels, and Security Seals

The Weiss Tech House, Penn’s center for tech start-ups, hosted an Elevator Pitch Competition on Saturday for young entrepreneurs. Elevator pitches are 2 minute pitches about a business idea and are often used by entrepreneurs to introduce their start-ups to new people.

The competition featured a panel of judges from prominent investors and start-up incubators such as First Round Capital, DreamIt Ventures, MentorTech, and founder.org. The winner, Jasper Heights, a data analytics firm that provides personal information about hotel guests so that hotels can customize the hospitality experience, walked away with $1200 in prize money. The company aims to help hotel guests feel like they are at home as “hospitality is all about service.”

Second place was taken by BionUX, a 3-D printed prosthetic arm that features haptic technology, or the ability to stimulate touch. This project was born out of a Penn engineering project and aims to provide a low-cost, high-quality solution to amputees. Touch guides a lot of our daily actions and to BionUX that is a “must have” for any prosthetic solution.

Another player in the healthcare industry was SafeStamp, an innovative security seal that uses nanoparticles that change different colors under different conditions. Their goal is to combat the sale of counterfeit medications.

The Elevator Pitch Competition showcased some of the best start-up talent at UPenn. Who knows? It could be the launching pad for the next big thing.

The Weiss Tech House is a student-run technological hub dedicated to student innovation. If you would like to learn more about the tech house please visit Tech-House.upenn.edu.