Team MuscleMorph (from Left to Right): Kevin Galloway, Rodrigo Alvarez, Anne Stamer (Director of the Weiss Tech House), Howard Katzenberg, Rahul Kolthari

On April 7, 2006, Rahul Kothari and the rest of the MuscleMorph team put on their good interview suits and headed to the Weiss Tech House. They ventured through the lobby of Levine Hal and proceeded upstairs, armed with the PowerPoint presentation they hoped would help convince a panel of judges to award them a significant chunk of the $60,000 in cash in prizes at stake that day.

When the team arrived they noticed that the main room of the Weiss Tech House had been converted into the presentation stage and judges’ chamber. The banks of computers that lined the walls were all shut down; there would be no internet access or free printing today. The House’s usual laid back, creative atmosphere was replaced with an exciting formality and sense of competition. Several tables were set up in the front of the room upon which teams of students had begun assembling their prototypes. “PennVention, Conceive it. Believe it. Achieve it,” read the banner hanging on the wall.

Rahul scanned the crowd and observed the panel of judges seated in the front of the room. The panel included successful entrepreneurs and venture capitalists like Josh Kopelman, founder of Half.com, and William Schawbel, Founder and CEO of the Schawbel Corporation. “It’s going to be alright,” though Rahul. “We’ve got a solid presentation.”

Faculty Director Karl Ulrich ushered everyone to their seats and welcomed judges, finalists, and corporate sponsors to the second annual PennVention competition. Rahul and his teammates joined nine other finalist teams in the back of the room. Three rounds of competition spanning several months, had winnowed the pool of 52 inventions down to the final ten. Months of product development and consultation with industry mentors culminated in this one afternoon.

In a way, all ten finalists were already winners. Each had received $850 from the Keystone Innovation Fund, an initiative of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania designed to stimulate the regional economy, to develop their product. They also received personalized integrated research and product development consultation from the Bresslergroup Inc., a Philadelphia-based company offering innovative product solutions, and mentoring services from DePuy, a leading designer, manufacturer, and distributor of orthopaedic devices.

PennVention 2006 judges panel (left to right): Josh Kopelman, First Round Capital; Gary Warren, Johnson & Johnson; Doug Rose, QVC; Dana Hancock, Science Center; William Schawbel, Schawbel Corporation; Doug Bernstein, Lowenstein Sandler, LLC.

One by one, the finalists took turns presenting the merits of their invention and answering questions designed to reveal the feasibility of the product. They spared no creative presentation strategies. Members of the team that invented Hotbean, an actively warming winter hat, all wore their products to show the aesthetic as well as practical appeal. The creators of the HUB lock system wheeled a ten-speed into the room to demonstrate their no-hassle bike locking system. When the presentations ended, the judges retired to their chamber to deliberate in private.

Across the board the judges agreed that the overall caliber of inventions was impressive, but one stood out among the rest. Indeed, MuscleMorph, the team of Rahul Kothari (WG ’06), Rodrigo Alvarez (SEAS/MS ’06), Howard Katzenberg (WG ’06), and Kevin Galloway (SEAS/PhD) swept several categories. MuscleMorph is a revolutionary actuator that emulates the motion of real biological muscles. In addition to winning the $5,000 grand prize the team also won the Science Center Commercialization Award and a Lowenstein Sandler PC Legal Mentoring Award. The Science Center, a ‘venture ecosystem’ that forms, funds, and manages early-stage life science and technology companies provided six month’s worth of free office space and amenities, while Lowenstein Sandler PC provided pro-bono legal services.

The second place prize of $2,500 went to Erik DeBraun (SEAS ’06), for his Octave Swing Trainer; a device that attaches to the end of a golf club and wirelessly transmits swing speed to a mobile phone, PHA, or optional ground display. The Octave Swing Trainer also won Paramount Industries’ Rapid Prototype Award for its potential for rapid prototyping and commercialization.

Francisco Martin-Rayo (W ’06), Zereyacob Girma, Aung Naing, and Nii Ayite Ayite won the $1,000 third place prize for VuShare. His technology would allow people to watch two different channels on the same television at the same time.

The QVC Consumer Innovation Prize of $2,5000 and a one-hour meeting with a QVC buyer went to Kunal Bahl (W ’06) for his pre-measured dissolvable packets of eco-friendly, super-concentrated laundry detergent called Dropps.

Jonathan Hefter (W ’09), the only freshman in the PennVention finals, received the second Lowenstein Sandler LLC Legal Mentoring Prizes for his patent-pending method of making fire-retardant paint.

Unlike other student invention competitions, PennVention provides students with resources that enable them to create viable products and actually launch them to market. “We started as a purely educational initiative but many of our students have continued with their products and gone off to do great things,” said Ulrich.

Case in point: MuscleMorph has since gone on the win the Wharton Business Plan Competition and as a result had the opportunity to ring the closing bell of the NASDAQ this past August and is now a semi-finalist for the FORTUNE Small Business student business plan competition.

“MuscleMorph will forever be in debt to the Weiss Tech House,” said Rahul, “This experience gave fast-track to validating our technology.”

The third annual PennVention competition will be held on April 6, 2006. Interested students and business mentors should contact info@tech-house.upenn.edu.