Fostering Student Innovation

Team Name: Youlo
Team Members: Colin Mills (YC’13), Carol Lasky
Industry: Webtech, Publishing, Healthcare/Elder Care
Website: youlo.gy

The Pitch

Youlo empowers individuals to personalize their own end-of-life send-offs and make their intentions known with a suite of in-print and online tools.  Youlo.gy’s online registry for creating, curating, and recording personal statements, ethical wills and giving designations, as well as the print legacy planner Youlo Pages, gives the individual the “last word” in how their lives will be celebrated, taking an enormous burden off of friends and family who would otherwise be left to decide what in the world someone “would have wanted.”

The Team

Colin Mills is a rising senior Economics major at Yale and a member of Pierson College. Observing the challenging and changing terrain of the healthcare market, Colin was inspired to enter the world of entrepreneurship. A Boston native, Colin has previously interned in management consulting. He has been a member of the Yale Varsity Fencing Team and enjoys writing short fiction.

Carol Lasky is a seasoned brand marketing professional with over 25 years’ experience. Her Boston-based firm Cahoots Design has launched multiple web-tech, healthcare and biotech startups and initiatives. Cahoots has been recognized for excellence in communication strategy and design with numerous commendations, most recently by the Massachusetts Historical Commission. Cahoots’ work is featured in many Best Of… juried compilations.

What problems did you see that led you to develop Youlo?

By most accounts, over 55% of adult Americans do not have wills. A far greater number die without having an opportunity to articulate and pass along their stories, share their life intentions and personalize their send-off celebrations/funeral arrangements. This creates a costly logistical and emotional quagmire for family and friends. Our recent surveys, targeting professionals in elder care, hospice, legal and financial services and the funeral industry, underscore the need for — and value of — tools (online and in print) that facilitate important legacy conversations. Personalized legacy planning platforms hold the promise of enhanced peace of mind, intergenerational understanding and improved health outcomes. With 78 million baby boomers approaching their milestone ages and rapidly driving up the demand for senior services, we recognize that this is a group that wants to be remembered and celebrated in the same way they have lived: uniquely.

How is the Youlo solution different?

We are building a social platform of personalized, experience-based legacy creation. Our emphasis is on dynamic storytelling. In contrast to many current sites and tools that are clinical and impersonal, Youlo encourages personal expression. Youlo enables individuals at all life stages to affirm life in simple, secure and honest reflection by providing a “necessary repository” for memory storage and retrieval.  At its core, Youlo is a secure, comprehensive, and trustworthy social-model platform that allows members to create and share their last words and final wishes.

Team Members: Paul Christensen (SOM ’13), Patrick Paczkowski (Ph.D. Candidate ‘13 - Computer Science), Julie Dorsey (Professor of Computer Science), Smita Venkat (SOM ’13), Andreas Kalpakci (Master of Environmental Design ARCH ’12)

The Pitch

Mental Canvas revolutionizes the development, exploration and sharing of ideas in 3D. Unlike the current "top-down" approach of Computer-Aided Design (CAD) systems that define large masses in 3D and then add details, Mental Canvas enables its users to explore unfinished ideas built from sketches and photographs in a coherent, lightweight environment built for the features and interface of the tablet computer.

The Team

Paul Christensen (CEO) is an MBA candidate at Yale SOM. Paul has 7 years’ experience in public relations and non-profit consulting in Asia and the US. He has a B.A. in Political Science from Yale University.

Patrick Paczkowski (CTO) is the co-inventor of Mental Canvas. Currently a Ph.D. Candidate in Computer Science at Yale University, he has a B.Sc. in Computer Science and Mathematics from Duke University.

Smita Venkat (CMO) is an MBA candidate at Yale SOM. She has 7 years’ experience in brand and management consulting to MNCs in Asia. Smita has a B.Sc. Economics from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Julie Dorsey (Chief Scientist) is a co-inventor of Mental Canvas. Currently she is a professor of computer science at Yale University. Julie came to Yale in 2002 from MIT, where she held tenured appointments in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and the School of Architecture Architect.

Andreas Kalpakci, (Creative Advisor) studied research methods in architecture on a Fulbright scholarship at Yale. Andreas has an M.Arch, B.Arch, from Academy of Architecture, Mendrisio and is a registered architect.

What problems did you see that led you to develop Mental Canvas?

Given the growth of tablet computing, Mental Canvas has a unique and compelling opportunity to be a transformative force in the development and sharing of 3D ideas. Through its intuitive tablet interface, Mental Canvas makes exploring 3D ideas easier for designers and more accessible for everyone. Mental Canvas addresses two problems: (1) modern Computer-Aided Design (CAD) systems are frequently used in the later stages of the design process, but are inadequate for the quick and conceptual early stages, and (2) there is currently no effective way to contextually incorporate the location or actual surroundings of a design.

How is the Mental Canvas solution different?

Through stroke-based sketching on multiple canvases, and importing images and visual data to create lightweight environments, Mental Canvas allows users to quickly explore concepts in 3D before committing to an idea. No other software offers this capability today. Built on proprietary technology developed in Yale’s Computer Science department, Mental Canvas will help both professional and casual designers explore ideas and potential directions without having to commit resources to creating a complex design model.

Team Name: RADx Cloud
Team Members: Aaron Abajian (MED ’15) and Ann Nguyen
Industry: Med Tech

The Pitch

RADx Cloud brings the power of high performance computing to radiology. Our patient-friendly technology completely eliminates the need for a laxative during a virtual colonoscopy, which is the number one reason patients avoid potentially life-saving colonoscopies.

The Team

Aaron Abajian, M.Ed. – CEO

Aaron Abajian is currently a second year student at the Yale School of Medicine. Prior to attending medical school, he was a software engineer at Candelis, a healthcare technology company. His work entailed the development of a cloud-based storage system for radiology images. Aaron has conducted research in medical imaging, biomedical informatics, and computational biology. His most recent work, published in the July 2012 issue of RadioGraphics, describes a workflow for the storage and retrieval of quantitative image annotations. Aaron also taught high school chemistry with Teach for America. He holds a master’s degree in Urban Education with a specialization in digital learning from Loyola Marymount University, and three undergraduate degrees in Computer Science & Engineering, Mathematics, and Biological Sciences from the University of California, Irvine.

Ann Nguyen, M.P.H. – COO

Ann Nguyen is a public health professional currently working at Palomar Health, California’s largest public health district, where she facilitates the licensing and opening of a 600-bed medical center through innovative techniques in staff education. Ann has extensive leadership experience in various health sectors, including prior work at the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, the St. Joseph Health System (SJHS), and COPE Health Solutions. At UCLA she worked on the development of the California Health Interview Survey, at SJHS she developed healthcare interpreter training modules, and at COPE she led a healthcare talent pipeline for over 1,000 clinical interns. She has a strong understanding of hospital workflows and their progression toward patient-centric care. Ann has conducted research in influenza epidemiology. She holds a master’s degree in Public Health Epidemiology and an undergraduate degree in Biomedical Engineering from the University of California, Irvine with a minor in Materials Science Engineering.

What problems did you see that led you to develop RADx Cloud?

Colorectal cancer is the second deadliest type of cancer in the United States, having killed over 53,000 people in 2009. Tragically, the CDC estimates that almost 50 percent of these cases could have been prevented through routine screening. The two most common screening methods are traditional, or optical, colonoscopy and virtual colonoscopy. Both optical and virtual colonoscopies require patients to consume laxative prior to the exam. The amount of laxative can range from two to four liters. Studies show that consuming laxative is the number one reason why patients choose not to go to their routine screenings. By removing the laxative requirement, we are providing a patient-friendly screening option. Our hope is to reduce the worldwide prevalence of colorectal cancer.

How is the RADx Cloud solution different?

RADx Cloud is the first company to offer a completely laxative-free virtual colonoscopy. Our technology uses a patented algorithm that ‘digitally cleanses’ the patient’s colon. The result is a three-dimensional image of the patient’s colon just as if the patient had ingested a laxative. We provide hospitals access to our cleansing algorithm through either an in-hospital server or our cloud computing platform. The latter will function as a base to offer additional medical imaging services such as computer-aided diagnoses.

Team name: Specially
Members: Hillary Barr (YC'12) and Tiffany Pang (YC'12)
Website: www.specially.co

The Pitch

Specially is an online platform for therapy augmentation, starting with autism. We aim to provide affordable Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapy with a social twist. 

The Team

Hilary Barr, CEO & Co-Founder – Hilary is a recent Cognitive Science graduate of Yale College who has had more than 9 years of experience working with the autism community. As CEO, she brings her passion and vision to the company. Ever since she was 14, she has volunteered at a retreat for special needs children and parents. At Yale, she started a non-profit with Tiffany to raise money for elephants in Thailand, founded a ventriloquism program as a therapeutic and creative outlet for children with autism, and did research on the autism community at the Yale Child Study Center.

Tiffany Pang, COO & Co-Founder – Tiffany is a recent Neuroscience graduate of Yale College. At Specially, she brings her leadership background and is the jack-of-all-trades of the company. She has had experience working at start-ups, having started a non-profit with Hilary and worked as a social media intern at Howcast in its early stages. At Yale, she served as the Director and President of the Hypertension Awareness Team that bridged the gap of access to health care for low-income people, studied anime and manga at Waseda University, and researched schizophrenia and other related diseases at the Yale Child Study Center.

John Cadengo, Technical Advisor – John graduated from University of California, San Diego in 2010 with a Bachelor of Arts in Math and Computer Science. At Specially, he brings his entrepreneurial spirit and technical background, having founded several other start-ups, including Dash and Snapstacks. During his time at UCSD, he volunteered at orphanages and a school for differently-abled children. He also co-founded a campus publication at UCSD. His weapons of choice are Python, Objective-C, HTML/CSS/Javascript.

Victor Mutai, Lead Developer – Victor graduated from Yale College in 2011 with a Bachelor of Science in Astronomy and Physics. An experienced web developer at previous startups, he brings his energy and technical background to the Specially team. His weapons of choice are Python and HTML/CSS/Javascript.

What problems did you see that led you to develop Specially?

Having been passionately involved in the autism community, we saw first-hand the loneliness, distress, and financial duress of parents of children with autism. From families whose therapy expenses are so high that they cannot afford to buy much else to single parents whose friends and family do not understand the uniqueness that autism brings, there are day-to-day stresses that few understand and even fewer know how to deal with. With only 5,000 certified therapists practicing the most effective therapy for autism in the world and 20 million people with autism worldwide, the lack of therapists and the high cost of therapy have been serious concerns of the autism community.

How is the Specially solution different?

Specially aims to reduce the cost of therapy and address the social needs of parents of children with autism by providing them the tools to augment applied behavior analysis therapy at home and connect with other parents doing the same program – all at an affordable price. We believe that if parents want therapy for their children, we should empower them by giving them the tools and access to do it. Not only will Specially aid the autism community, it aims to provide similar tools for other special needs populations.

Team name: Communificiency
Members: Max Webster (YC'12) and Sherwin Yu (YC'12)
website: http://signup.communificiency.com/

The Pitch

Communificiency is a crowdfunding platform that allows businesses, nonprofits, and other organizations to raise money from their communities to finance investments in the energy efficiency of their buildings. 

The Team

Max Webster (CEO) YC ' 12, Political Science

Max is a recent Yale graduate with a passion for sustainability and technology. He has a proven track record for building and leading startups. Most recently he founded and served as Executive Director of Climate Voices, an NGO aimed at raising awareness about the human impacts of climate change, where he built and led a team of 15+, raised funds, and communicated the organization’s mission through giving two TEDx talks and speaking around the world.

Sherwin Yu (CTO) YC '12, Computer Science and Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry

Sherwin is an experienced software engineer with a drive to build technologies that combat the most pressing challenges of our generation. Sherwin has interned at Google, led large teams for programming competitions and projects, and worked at Rapleaf, a quickly growing data mining start-up. Sherwin recently turned down job offers at Google and other tech start-ups to start Communificiency.

What problems did you see that led you to develop your venture?
The current lack of investment in energy efficiency for buildings and vehicles is the result of a massive market failure. Basic investments in insulation, HVAC, and lighting can help buildings save up to 40% on energy bills and CO2 emissions. McKinsey has confirmed that the potential market for savings throughout the U.S. is in the billions if not trillions of dollars and President Clinton calls energy efficiency the closest thing to a free lunch in this economy. Despite the obvious economic case for efficiency, there are at least two major barriers to tackle. First, there is a lack of cheap upfront capital. Business and homeowners need immediately available money to finance projects that will take time to pay for themselves. Second, there is a lack of awareness and excitement about efficiency projects and their value.

How is the Communificiency solution different?
Communificiency's novel introduction of crowdfunding to the efficiency market can provide access to cheap capital while also getting both building owners and community members engaged with efficiency. By starting with small businesses that can offer financially and emotionally driven rewards to customers who fund their retrofits, we believe that we can generate interest and excitement around our projects.