Inventathon gives students forum for healthcare-focused innovation and entrepreneurship

Two UCLA graduate students met a year ago this week in the midst of an annual networking week, and hatched an idea to bring operating room technology to battlefields, ski slopes and other areas prone to causing brain injury.

After meeting at the UCLA Business of Science Center’s first annual Innovation Week, the students soon launched Neural Analytics, a company that is creating a portable device that can detect skull pressure outside of an operating room.

One year and two prototypes later, Leo Petrossian, a MBA student and the company’s CEO, is returning to the conference where he first met his co-founder to inspire other potential entrepreneurs.

“Entrepreneurship and innovation in healthcare and medical devices is significant because it can’t just change peoples’ lives – it can save them,” Petrossian said.

This year marks the Business of Science Center’s second annual Innovation Week. It is a series of startup-centric events meant to inspire students to innovate in their fields, and give them tools to form companies around their ideas.

The week is part of the Center’s efforts to unite diverse talents on campus and to entice and support students in starting their own multidisciplinary companies like Neural Analytics, said Shyam Natarajan, founder and lead organizer of the Innovation Week program.

The events are being coordinated with other startup-centric organizations on campus such as the Entrepreneurship Association and the Institute for Technology Advancement. The week culminates with the Business of Science Center’s inaugural Inventathon, which will be similar to hackathons that technology companies host, Natarajan said. It is the first such event that is healthcare-focused, he added.

The Inventathon is a 24-hour event during which 90 participating students will form teams and compete to invent the best solution that addresses an unmet medical need, which could potentially lead to the students forming a company to take the idea further, Natarajan said.

“Ideally, we want students at UCLA to realize, ‘Hey, we can change the world,’ and give them a forum to find co-founders,” he said.

The event this year is drawing serial and aspiring entrepreneurs from throughout the United States, particularly Silicon Valley and Silicon Beach – a nickname for the Los Angeles coastline, which has seen a proliferation of startups in recent years.

“UCLA’s the place to do it because the hospital is right across the street, so business, life sciences and engineering are all together,” said Christina Vorvis, the Inventathon organizer and director of sponsorship.

Natarajan said that stories of companies like Neural Analytics are an inspiration for members of the center to continue growing events such as the Innovation Week.

“Our personal goal is to create an environment where students can actually feel encouraged, motivated and inspired to come up with the next big idea that will change the world,” he said.