Last week marked the end of the Translation Phase of the Boeing Patent Challenge announced in August.  Judges from Boeing and Skandalaris heard presentations from 20 teams and made the difficult decision of selecting 2 for “best translation of the day.”  Team VMLVM (Vamsi Marla and Max Zern, Arts & Sciences; Lucy Wang and Michelle Yuan, Business; and Vicky Wang, Engineering) took home honors on the first day of presentations and Nano Syntech (Ahmed Abokifa and Kelsey Haddad, Arts & Sciences; Zeran Li, Medicine; Nathan Reed and Jiajing Xu, Engineering; Xin Gao and Aaron Mohr, Law; and Samantha Feng, Business) rose to the top on Day 2.  Teams are required to include students from at least 3 Wash U schools, and all seven schools are represented in the Challenge.

From here, the Skandalaris Center and Boeing will continue to train and mentor the students as they prepare for phase 2, where they will use the business model canvas to create a plan to form a new venture with the goal of commercializing the patent. Students will also have an opportunity to tour Boeing Phantomworks at the Cortex Innovation Community @4240 during an upcoming Venture Cafe.  Look for the first commercialization judging round just before Thanksgiving, and check the Skandalaris website for updates regarding times and locations. We will wrap up the competition on December 3 in Emerson Auditorium located in Knight Hall with final presentations, a reception, and cash awards totaling $5,000 presented to winning teams.