Pacific hosts Inspired Ideas Competition

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Five winning groups have been decided for this year’s Inspired Ideas Competition put on by the Berglund Center. Three groups received the Entrepreneur Award and two received the Makers Award. Winners of both awards receive a $1,000 scholarship for each member of each team.

Winners of the Entrepreneur Award receive the necessary tools and support to bring their idea to the prototype and product stages, along with $3,000 to supplement development costs. Meanwhile, the Makers Award is designed for
students who do not have time between work, family or school to develop their idea.

Instead of developing the idea independently, a group of Pacific students are involved in the process. Teams including Hording Disorder Treatment App, Serve Us and Hearing Habits all received the Entrepreneur Award.

The Makers Award winners were Team Okamura and Team Heartwatch. Team Hording Disorder Treatment App members are clinical psychology students who plan to develop a cognitive behavioral therapy smartphone app for the treatment of hoarding disorders.

Team Serve Us’s idea was to develop an app that betters the community by providing a single portal for volunteering, donations and social networking. The team consists of computer science students.

Team Hearing Habits plans to develop a smartphone-based hearing aid diary that allows users to record and report their listening experiences in a concise and clinically useful manner. Audiology students made up the team.

Business students made up Team Okamura who developed a specialized energy gel water bottle attachment for athletes and people with diabetes. Team Heartwatch plans to develop a wearable device specifically designed for monitoring cardiovascular health during high stress situations that firefighters and first respondents most commonly face. The members were clinical psychology students.

“The quality of entries was exceptionally high,” professor Andy Soria said. “I honestly wished I had more than five awards to give, as everyone deserved the prizes.”

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