AND THE WINNER IS . . . . AcousticSheep LLC!
Ben Franklin Technology Partners is pleased to announce that this year’s winner of the BIG IDEA contest is Dr. Wei-Shin Lai and her team with AcousticSheep LLC. The company, which is located right off Peninsula Drive in Ebco Business Park, is developing software and phone apps, that when coupled with their latest generation of SleepPhones®, helps people get a good night’s sleep without using unreliable and expensive solutions or medication. For more information contact jennifer@acousticsheep.com or see www.sleepphones.com.
“We have an idea that will transform SleepPhones from being headphones that help you sleep better to a community participating to improve sleep throughout the entire world. Winning this amazing prize will allow us to create a new technology to eliminate sleepless nights cheaply and completely drug-free for everyone,” said Dr. Wei-Shin Lai, inventor and founder of AcousticSheep LLC.
As one of six finalists that made presentations to an independent panel of judges, AcousticSheep LLC will take home a prize package that includes:
- $50,000 in cash,
- An Innovation Adoption Grant up to $25,000 to work with a PA-based research university
- Priority access to a low-interest $100,000 loan
- 60 hours of Innovation Engineering project time from the NW Industrial Resource Center (www.NWIRC.org)
- Access to an Advanced Manufacturing Apprentice to assist in prototype development or pre-commercialization services
- A one-year pass to seminars offered by Ben Franklin’s eMarketing Learning Center http://emarketinglearningcenter.org
- Consultation (and proposal prep) on accessing Federal R&D grant money from the Innovation Partnership http://innovationpartnership.net.Stephen Brawley, President and CEO of Ben Franklin commented, “Our very popular BIG IDEA competitions help us identify likely entrepreneurs in the region and create a pipeline of startup activity that otherwise might go untapped. This year, the $200,000 BIG IDEA Contest attracted the attention of thousands of folks. We know that because 3,100 of them visited our contest landing page to check out the rules and prize package. We had so many great applications, it was difficult for the judges to choose just a few finalists.”
This year’s finalists, who also took home cash prizes ranging from $2,500 – $10,000, included:
- Mary Jo Light with Integrated Machine Company
- Zak Stahlsmith with ApexDrop Influence Marketing
- Todd Scalise with Mosaix
- Fred Zeyfang with Plastic Innovations and Technologies
- Harb Nayar with TAT Technologies.
