Virginia Teen Entrepreneurs Create Mobile Platform to Connect Families with Elder's Health Data

Karthik Ramu (left), 17, of Aldie, VA along with their team member, Kushi Sethuram (right), 16, of Aldie, VA are one of this year's competitors in the i.Invest National Youth Business Competition. The team members are the cofounders of AmityConnections, a healthcare startup working to develop a mobile platform that will connect families with the real-time health data of their eldest members so that they may have the continuous ability to monitor their health conditions.

We spoke with Karthik and Kushi to learn more about the business venture:

Tell us about your startup:

AmityConnect is a mobile platform that connects family members with the health of their elders by aggregating real-time health data from smart medical devices onto a single platform accessible to family members at any given time, thus providing them with constant peace of mind. AmityConnect acts as an epicenter for numerous consumer-based smart medical devices that offer open application programming interfaces (e.g. FitBit, Apple Watch, Hexoskin, iHealth, etc.) to third-party developers/companies.

Who or what inspired you to start AmityConnections?

Kushi's grandmother, who had a history of blood clots and respiratory health conditions, would constantly reassure Kushi's mother that she was perfectly fine to not worry her. Her mother bought her grandmother a medical device intended to help monitor her respiratory conditions. Yet, without access to the health data being tracked along with the inability to constantly call her grandmother, who resided on the other side of the globe, the device was not much help. Around 3 years ago, Kushi's grandmother passed away. To this day, Kushi's mother lives with the agonizing thought that if she had more awareness of her mother's health, she could still be alive. Our growing concern for the health of our grandparents in India, coupled with the stories and sorrows from our problem interviews, fueled our goal at AmityConnections of offering proactive and connected healthcare solutions that offer constant peace of mind.

How will AmityConnections impact the world?

Today, family members are unable to connect regularly with the health of their elders due to demands of work, children, marriage, and other socioeconomic factors. Currently, 60% of elders, in the U.S alone, have two or more chronic health conditions (2017 National Health Interview Survey). AmityConnect provides our community's concerned family members with an opportunity to not only monitor, but take proactive and informed decisions regarding the health of their elderly based on aggregated health data. Consequently, the family members in our community can gain a constant peace of mind. AmityConnect can provide family members and caretakers the opportunity to stay connected with the health of their elders and make appropriate and proactive elder care decisions.

What are the next steps?

AmityConnections is seeking seed funding for app development, company formation, marketing, and initial company operations for the first three months. Using the current funds derived from non-equity investments, we have been developing a beta version of the AmityConnect platform. The beta version will be able to aggregate data from a single type of smart medical device (e.g. FitBit HR) and will validate the effectiveness of our data aggregation methods and the peace of mind it offers to family members. We, then, plan on channeling this validation to obtain the previously mentioned seed funding to begin the development of a complete AmityConnect platform that connects to a variety of smart medical devices and is accessible to our entire target market of family members within the U.S.

To learn more about AmityConnections, visit their website, https://amityconnections.com, or Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/AmityConnections. To mentor or offer support, email info@i-investcompetition.com.

High Schoolers Revolutionize Pickup Sports with Mobile App

High school seniors Kyle Beerbower, Kenneth Duran, Victor Carolino, and Andrew Politz—all from Los Angeles, California—are one of this year's competitors in the i.Invest National Youth Business Competition. They are the co-founders of RunItBack, a mobile app that gives every athlete the opportunity to play a recreational sport in an organized environment.

We spoke with the team to learn more about their business venture:

Tell us about your startup:

Our product, RunItBack, is a mobile app with a core function of organizing and mapping recreational sports games while also allowing users to participate in our community of athletes through our engaging features. The interactive map plots nearby available courts and allows players to choose a location, schedule or join a game, and post it on the map for others in the area to see and join. It also verifies suitable playing locations and allows them to compare different locations through star ratings and reviews from users. Users can view available courts with typically no wait and ongoing games in the area on our “Nearby” tab and can look at prearranged games, the weekly matchups for community-based leagues, and local tournaments on our “Scheduled” tab. After games are played, players input the results, rate each other, and vote on the game’s MVP. That data is then transferred and factored into game records, player “star ratings,” and local leaderboard rankings, which—in addition to our customizable user profiles, player highlights, the ability to make friends and form “squads,” and a multitude of prizes available to users—combine to create an inclusive, engaged community of athletes nationwide.

Who or what inspired you to start RunItBack?

The idea for RunItBack was born when we were unable to find an open court to simply shoot some hoops. We looked further into the issue and, with the help of Forbes’ article about sports inequity, discovered many shocking truths about the sports world that prompted us to devise solutions for the ongoing issues and to turn one of those ideas—RunItBack—into a reality.

How will RunItBack impact the world?

With the help of our technology, we seek to challenge outdated traditional standards and reinvent how sports are played for the better. Our product plans to address three main societal problems: sports inequity driven by the inaccessibility of sports for lower socioeconomic classes, the continuing decrease of overall sports participation, and the subtle replacement of physical activities with digital interaction. We will directly combat these issues by offering a free-to-use, accessible, universally available medium on which to play sports and reinvesting 10% of our profits to charities that work to eliminate sports inequity and empower marginalized youth. We also seek to incentivize our users to stay active and play sports through our prizes and competitive environment with one’s friends and local community that encourages consistent and habitual participation in recreational sports.

What are the next steps?

We are currently in the process of developing a user interface design and utilizing source code to develop the infrastructure of our app. We are also exploring crowdfunding options on Kickstarter and Indiegogo to assist with our initial expenses, including the marketing costs for our launch campaign, AWS cloud hosting service costs, and LLC filing and insurance costs.

In the meantime, we are ameliorating often neglected but vital aspects of our app. We are in the process of creating an introduction video for our app and a short film, and we are launching a giveaway soon to establish our social media presence. We are also constantly expanding our skill sets in the coding, marketing, and financial fields to ensure that we can create and launch the app in a smooth and straightforward manner. We have a long and difficult road ahead of us, but we are confident in our ability to ultimately fulfill our aspirations of becoming the future of pickup sports.

Learn more about the app at www.runitbackapp.com.

To mentor or offer support, email info@i-investcompetition.com.

Youth Startup Builds GPS, LED Attachable to Help Prevent Tailgating and Rear-End Collisions

Tommy Zheng, 15, of Dallas, TX, along with their team member, Brendan Kelly, 14, of Dallas, TX, are one of this year's competitors in the i.Invest National Youth Business Competition. The team members are the cofounders of Spazen, a product that attaches to the back of a car to reduce rear-end collisions caused by tailgating through the use of GPS technology and LED lights.

We spoke with Tommy Zheng to learn more about the business venture:

Tell us about your startup:

Spazen is an inexpensive and effective product that will highly reduce rear-end collisions caused by tailgating. The product will be attachable to the back of a car just like a normal license plate frame. It has red LED warning lights which will be turned on if the distance between the car behind you and yours is too close. Our technology will take the speed of that car and your car into consideration. That is why we call it a, “Smart Frame.” Our device uses GPS technology to determine the speed of the car, and radar technology, which determines the distance between your car and car behind you. The CPU will decide when to switch to the red light setting, which warns the driver behind, sending a warning that you two are so close that an accident is highly likely if you were to stop your car suddenly. The car behind you should pay attention to these signals and act accordingly, reducing tailgating accidents.

Who or what inspired you to start Spazen?

One day during a car ride home, there was a lot of traffic due to a car accident. At first, I [Tommy Zheng] was a little frustrated because the accident would cause me to arrive home later than originally planned. Once we reached the location where the two cars collided, I realized it happened because one car was tailgating the other. Because I had seen so many tailgating accidents in the past, I started to think about why it occurred so often. After I got home, I asked my dad, “Why does tailgating accidents happen so often even with Forward collision warning systems?” My dad informed me that it is because Forward Collision warning system only prevents you from tailgating others, but it does not prevent others from tailgating you. Also, it is not always activated!” So, I started to research the topic. Believe it or not, most people don’t know exactly what the required safety distance is for difference speeds, and there isn’t any similar product in this market right now. After finding these statistics, I was determined to make a product to fill this market.

How will Spazen impact the world?

Our company has a huge positive social impact on the community and the world. There are currently 950,000 tailgating accidents per year and 23% of all traffic accidents are tailgating accidents. Our goal is to make the community safer by reducing the number of tailgating accidents each year with a very reasonable cost. Spazen will make the roads safer for all drivers in the community and allow the community to prosper. Our product will help prevent a large portion of rear-end collisions caused by tailgating and will also help save millions of dollars in potential damage while keeping drivers safe. Although money is important, the main way Spazen will enrich the community is by saving lives.

What are the next steps?

Spazen is seeking funding to be reinvested in our company to expand our reach and market influence further. We plan to heavily invest in marketing, advertising, and customer education using our initial fund. We believe that customer education is crucially important as it will help our customers better understand the advantages of our product and the differences between our product and forward collisions prevention system. Our advertising will be targeted specifically for the general public, car dealerships, and insurance companies. In addition, we will use the other half of the money received to expand and develop the company further. We will extend our product line with more functions, and we will apply for patents covering our general design and technology behind Spazen which help us to keep our competitive advantage. We will hire more experienced sales staff to strengthen our sales network to approach more target customers. Market share is our major target for the first 5 years, and we will be the leading player in this industry after that.

To mentor or offer support, email info@i-investcompetition.com.