Six UCLA teams presented their technologically innovative products to a panel of judges on Wednesday in hopes of winning a $10,000 award from a capital firm.
The teams, composed of both graduate and undergraduate students from many departments, proposed ideas for in demand products. The projects ranged from an iPhone universal remote to a game in which a participant re-enacts and interacts with a movie.
This is the first start-up competition of this kind at UCLA and was a partnership between the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television and the UCLA Office of Intellectual Property and Industry Sponsored Research. The contest was sponsored by the Mail Room Fund, which is comprised of venture capital firms Venrock and Accel, AT&T, and private donor William Morris.
The Mail Room Fund approached the university about co-sponsoring the technology competition, said Jeff Burke, director of technology and research for the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television.
Each team presented a working demonstration of their product for the judges and audience.
The winning team proposed a service similar to eBay, in which products are exchanged immediately for points that can be used for online gaming. Much to their surprise, they received a $10,000 check to continue the development of the project.
One of the crowd-pleasing presentations was a karaoke application for the iPhone. In the demonstration, the team sang and harmonized into the phone.
“I thought all the teams did a great job, and every one of them had highlights. Different ones excelled in presentation, around the innovation, around the market potential, so it was difficult to decide who the award should go to,” said Bahram Jalali, an electrical engineering professor and judge panelist.
“However, (the winning) team had it all together more than others I think. They had identified a potentially huge market ““ that from observation, perhaps it wouldn’t appeal to people my age,” he said.