Jackson A. Lanier
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Anchor Lead:
It’s an event the Kenan-Flagler Business School that’s inspiring innovation and entrepreneurship in students. Reporter Jackson Lanier has more on a competition called…”the Make-a-thon.”
Take PKG
Package: UNC students John Feshuk Sebastian Crowell are pitching the app they made to a panel of judges. The judges are professionals and UNC professors. Feshuk and Crowell are competing in the UNC Makeathon, a competition where students have two weeks to research, design, and prototype a product that they believe could be a successful business and have positive social impact.
“our
product is essentially taking the problem of having different keys and
fobs they have to carry around on daily basis and converting that into a
near field communication app that works with locks
that we built so that the only thing you have to carry around with you
on a daily basis is your phone.”
But..the winner of this year’s makeathon was an app called mPower which is designed to connect low income patients suffering from chronic diseases with local resources. The mPower team said they look forward to taking their prize and using it fund further development of the app.
“Our next steps are going to be user testing, organizing more stakeholder engagement sessions. So we’ll be talking to patients, administrators, providers, nonprofit directors, basically anybody involved in chronic disease care.”
While some groups like mPower plan to turn their product into a business, the Director of the Carolina Challenge Aspen Fulcher, says that the Makeathon is not just for business students
“if
students aren’t involved, maybe they don’t consider themselves an
entrepreneur just that they give the makeathon a shot because it’s, it’s
a really fun way to meet a lot of people that are interested
and passionate about the same,
The next makeathon will be held in the spring of 2021. In Chapel Hill, I’m Jackson Lanier, Carolina Week.
Anchor Tag: The UNC Make-A-Thon is only in its second year. It’s a partnership between the Carolina Challenge, BEAM, UNC App Lab, and innovate Carolina.