The Blackstone LaunchPad Ideas Competition was a virtual business plan competition powered by Startup Tree. Designed specifically for students with no prior with experience with entrepreneurship, the Ideas Competition was created so that any student — no matter their major or career plans — could practice the important skills of distilling and presenting a latent idea. All undergraduate and graduate students with an idea, no matter how small, or a prototype, no matter how rough, were invited to apply. 

Of the 23 applicants from UTMB, four finalists were selected as winners, each representing a different business track. Each winner was awarded $1,000.

The winner from the Social & Climate Impact track was: Jacqueline Silva, GSBS (CAR) and Holly Chapman GSBS (CAR), CORRE – linking community members to naloxone accessibility 

The winner from the Health & Life Sciences track was: Joseph Gosnell, SOM, BiliLight Therapeutics – assist with bilirubin therapy

The winner from the Consumer Products & services track was: Jonathan Lin, SOM/GSBS(PharmTox T32) MedRebs – collaborative medical education website

And the winner from the General track was: Javier Gomez SOM, Hermes Health Corp – decentralized universal health record

In addition to winning $1,000, all four students will go on to compete against the winners from 45 other schools in the Blackstone LaunchPad network. These finalists will receive judging, feedback, mentorship, and the chance to win an additional $10,000 in cash plus in-kind prizes. 

If you would like more information on programs such as these please reach out to our team at innovate@utmb.edu.