Business ideas from students

Mayank Nath, a University of Bridgeport student-entrepreneur who created an app that transfers money at lightning-fast speed, has won the Best Venture Enterprise Award at the CT Business Plan Competition. The prize consisted of $1,000 in cash plus $2,500 in legal services from the law firm Wiggin & Dana, which has an office in Stamford.

Three other awards went to UB students. Ten teams from five different Connecticut universities competed.

While Nath”™s app, called LendR, transfers money in seconds, it also would allow lower fees and beefed-up cybersecurity designed to better protect consumers”™ data.

Nath is an MBA candidate at UB”™s Ernest C. Trefz School of Business. He was advised by Jim Dougherty and Dorian Yanez, entrepreneurs-in-residence at UB”™s Student Entrepreneur Center.

UB student James Marquis received a $500 second place award in the Best Business Plan Venture Enterprise category for GS Thermal Solutions, a patented programmable indoor plant-light growing system. 

The Best Written Executive Summary Award of $500 went to Mahmoud Morshedy for Immersive Shift Labs, a medical-imaging device that uses holographic visualization and mixed reality. 

The Best Social Enterprise Prize, also $500, was awarded to UB engineering students Dan Tenney, Sree Veena Venigalla, and Charnjit Sing for KidWatch, a GPS tracking system designed to locate missing children.