Student News
Entrepreneurial IMBA Duo to Roll Out Robotic Device
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| Shaun Abraham (left) and Anand Deekaram pose with their plaque for winning first place in the Lightning Round April 12 at the New Venture Championship for student entrepreneurs in Portland, Oregon. |
Every Sunday for a year, the men met at a local Starbucks to brainstorm ideas for a possible entrepreneurial venture. “We thought about ‘green’ fuels, we thought about ethnic toys,” says Deekaram. Finally, the pair came up with a plan: their company would manufacture robotic products, the firm would be called MadWise, and “Robotics Made Simple” would be their tagline.
Now Abraham, 28, a Florida native who was trained as a computer engineer, and Deekaram, 30, a manufacturing engineer from India, are about to graduate with their IMBA degrees. They’re also preparing to launch their firm’s inaugural product: a robotic device called Mount 1.
The device is a wireless, remote-controlled, automated mount for a Flat TV/ monitor that will allow the viewer to quell glare from the sun or from lighting by adjusting the television/monitor left or right, up or down. Mount 1’s design is “simple, unique, and customizable,” says Abraham.
The company’s first target market is nursing homes and hospitals, where patients, who are often immobile, would be able to use the robotic device to adjust their TV screens themselves from a bed or chair.
Abraham and Deekaram were invited to demonstrate Mount 1 this spring at the prestigious New Venture Championship, a national/international business plan competition for student entrepreneurs sponsored by the University of Oregon’s Lundquist Center for Entrepreneurship. One of only 20 teams from around the world selected to compete, the Moore School team won first place in the Lightning Round. That’s when students present their entrepreneurial idea in just 15 minutes -- with no props -- to actual venture capitalists.
Abraham and Deekeram (with the help of classmate Orlando Yepez) introduced their device at the Oregon competition with a clever 30-second video produced with the help of businesswoman Doreen Sullivan, owner of the Columbia, South Carolina-based advertising/public relations firm Post No Bills. Abraham and Deekaram had some practice doing videos; they created one about a wanna-be rap star for their first entrepreneurship course, taught by Dr. Richard Robinson, back in 2006. That video eventually made it to YouTube, where it has garnered more than 1,000 hits.
After graduation this spring, Abraham and Deekaram – along with business partner Anish Mampetta – plan to spend time building a third prototype of Mount 1 for market. They also will be contacting venture capitalists who might like to buy into the enterprise.
“We made some great contacts [at the Oregon competition],” says Abraham. The company has also been accepted into SC Launch, a joint private/state venture fund that could award MadWise up to $200,000.
The men hope to launch Mount 1 by the end of 2008, aiming the device first at hospitals and nursing homes, then at the hospitality industry, and finally at individual consumers. But Mount 1 is just the beginning. “We have more than 20 other products in the pipeline,” says Abraham.
The men are generous in their praise of Sullivan, Robinson, Moore lecturer Pat DeMouy, Chad Hardaway of the University of South Carolina’s Intellectual Property Office, and Dorette Coetsee of ECI-Find New Markets. “We have had great support,” says Deekaram. “Everyone wanted us to succeed.”
Jan Collins
April 2008