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BIC - BegDeals Semi-Finalists - 2009 |
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| Alithia Charity Inc. |
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Alithia Charity Inc. (ACI) is the grassroots solution to sustainable development in third world countries. Departing from unsustainable hand out based forms of assistance to those at the “bottom of the pyramid;” founder, entrepreneur and global citizen Demetri Patitsas along with his team of third world agents of change have embarked on a mission to link third world small business owners and their services to tourists and visitors via an online registry, search engine, and booking system.
Seeking assistant from the Hellenic Business Network; ACI is in the process of raising $20,000 to create and execute a pilot program in the country of Guatemala where unemployment has reached 20% and over 60% of the population lives under the poverty line. With over 1.1 million tourists visiting Guatemala per year; ACI will facilitate the redistribution of tourist dollars by linking struggling business owners to customers. Based on the old adage of “teaching someone to fish” instead of “giving them a fish;” ACI will provide “true charity” to an otherwise underserved and underrepresented group of Guatemalan artisans, tour guides, restaurants, farmers, and hotels by providing them with the opportunity to sell and offer their services through ACI’s online travel agency. |
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| Biobit |
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BioBit combines a 24/7 wearable physical activity sensor with a Web 2.0 support website to solve the problem of a sedentary lifestyle.
According to the US Surgeon General, more than half of Americans of all ages do not get enough daily physical exertion, facing as a result preventable issues from obesity and heart disease to cancer and depression.
The latest guidelines for establishing wellness-centered physical activity habits revolve around two key ideas: 1) Small steps matter. For instance taking the stairs even for only a few minutes daily adds up to significant increases in wellness. 2) Gentle reminders and community support are crucial in maintaining these habits.
BioBit is prototyping a lifestyle product that makes small, achievable steps towards appropriate amounts of physical activity “count”.
Biobit is as much a fashion and wellness awareness statement, in the tradition of “Livestrong” Armstrong bracelets, as it is a functional tool. It mimics the effects of a gentle personal trainer, life coach or caring group of friends egging each other towards wellness, tracking progress and gently reminding one to keep moving! |
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| Burning Hollow Technologies |
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Burning Hollow Technologies (BHT) has developed a cutting edge, scalable, full-featured home automation solution. Using proprietary software, the system consists of five main components that all work together - lighting, HVAC (thermostat), advanced energy monitoring, four zones of distributed audio, and 2-50 zones of distributed video. With a BHT system, users can sit in Fiji and turn their thermostat down with an iTouch. They can turn every light in the house off, as well as the coffee pot and televisions with a single switch at the front door. They can monitor, to the penny, what their four-year-old refrigerator costs to operate. In a BHT system, all of the electronics within a home are integrated to work for the homeowner, rather than independently. |
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| Meya |
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Meya revolves around the wave of “green consumerism”. Consumers are bombarded with green choices in every market. Biodegradable flip-flops however do not yet exist. Meya will provide a product as good looking and comfortable as the current market leader (Havianna) in traditional, EVA((Ethylene Vinyl Acetate) )-rubber based flip-flops. Meya competes with traditional rubber products on marketing, not price or difference in functionality. Consumers will have a guilt free shopping experience they can brag about and Meya’s will not pollute landfills and oceans when discarded. |
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| MixedInc |
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Given the sheer number of voices competing for attention online, individuals cannot make themselves heard and organizations can't process the volume of input they receive.
MixedInk’s collaborative writing platform solves these problems. It enables large groups to speak with a single voice by weaving their best ideas and opinions into a collective text. The tool combines the wiki concept with a democratic voting system like Digg’s to ensure that the community's best text, rather than simply the most recent, emerges at the end. It provides real-time text suggestions and automates authorship tracking to encourage remixing of a community's best ideas and language into a single, well-written text.
Using MixedInk's platform, thousands can create an op-ed, review, product specification, mission statement, news article, or letter to Congress. The tool can be used for free at MixedInk.com or be integrated within existing websites as a customizable, embeddable widget.
The company earned favorable media coverage in summer 2008 when activists used it to develop a political platform, a piece of which was included in the official Democratic platform. More recently, MixedInk partnered with Slate Magazine on a high-profile project in which more than 400 people developed a collective inaugural address. |
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| Nanometis |
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Proteins are essential for a vast amount of fundamental biological processes in the human body. They give cells their specific function, control the energy production, oxygen supply, and intercellular communication. Proteins get their specific functions through their individual structure and interactions with other biomolecules. Thus, they are responsible for a vast amount of complex diseases, like Creutzfeld-Jacob, Alzheimer, or cancer (e.g. leukemia, pancreatic cancer). Researchers use various complementary analysis methods to understand the structural design, the functionality and interactions between proteins and other molecules, and thus, understand and treat diseases.
One of the most important proteins are membrane proteins, since they are key regulators of cellular function. Up to two thirds of known drug targets in the pharmaceutical industry are membrane proteins, highlighting their pharmaceutical importance. However, not more than 0.2% of all membrane proteins have been understood as of yet since they are difficult to study in traditional ways.
A new and effective method is the single molecule force spectroscopy (SMFS), which allows an analysis of individual proteins for various purposes. Specifically, SMFS allows a novel and cost- and time-efficient analysis of membrane proteins. With SMFS proteins can be pulled out of cells and the force needed provides much information about the stability, structure, mutations and function of a specific protein under predefined conditions. The conclusions drawn can support systematic drug development in the pharmaceutical industry.
To support this broad application spectrum of SMFS, the hardware has been highly developed in the last few years, such that automated measurements of thousands of protein samples can be made quickly. Some SMFS-hardware providers have automated the measurement on single molecules, such that on a single day up to 40.000 measurements can be realized. On the other hand, this huge amount of experimental data needs to be analyzed by software in adequate time to exploit all the
benefits of this method. Until now, the measured data were analyzed manually by researchers.
However, manual analysis is too slow and error-prone. Nanometis comes into play to provide a valuable solution for automated analysis and systematic drug development. |
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| Shareholder Power |
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The tension between the interests of corporate management and the interests of shareholders has always existed, yet the recent financial crisis has brought issues of corporate governance into the spotlight. Today we see public outrage over poor management of corporations, excessive risk-taking, ineffective corporate strategy, wildly excessive compensation packages, misaligned management incentives, and the disenfranchisement of shareholders. Share-Power(TM) will change all of that.
Share-Power(TM) is an investor tool designed to implement better corporate governance of public companies, improve the efficiency of the capital markets, and ultimately increase value to shareholders. Share-Power(TM) is an electronic shareholder forum that will allow shareholders to communicate and mobilize, unlocking the voting power of each individual shareholder, which institutions and activist investors can leverage to improve corporate leadership and increase returns to shareholders. |
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| 280Tv |
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280TV is the "ESPN" of paintball. The company provides fanatics with access to paintball footage, information, and news. Through 280TV.com, enthusiasts can interact with other enthusiasts from across the globe all while accessing great content. 280TV is the #1 destination for the paintball community. | | |
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| Citisoles |
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| International B2B |
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The company is an online B2B marketplace that connects needs and capabilities in the international food trade. | | |
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| Oxygen |
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In big cities, industrial regions, and unlucky destinations of global wind patterns, outdoor physical activity can be bad for your health. In LA and Beijing, those days where outdoor physical activity is a bad idea are counted in months and are responsible for premature death, chronic illness, hospitalizations, missed school and workdays, and just plain bad mood as people are forced to stay indoors. HEPA gas masks on Amazon.com go for less than fifty dollars, and can often be seen on TV broadcasts of downtown Beijing pedestrians. But these masks are cumbersome, ugly, and unfashionable. Given a choice, many of us would prefer to remain indoors than to wear these outdoors. Furthermore, physical activity other than walking is often impossible with these cumbersome masks. Leveraging patents in nanotechnology and mechanical design, we will market miniaturized pollution masks with minimal face covering, comfort in physical activity, and a flair for fashion. A new standard in wearablity and fashion, our goal is a new “Swatch”® standard in individual pollution countermeasure. With personalized graphic designs, people are not only going to be free to roam and exercise outdoors whenever they please, but they are going to want to be seen wearing our masks. |
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