Walton Sustainability Solutions Festival awards local start-up ventures
Three local start-up ventures based with Phoenix’s social impact startup incubator SEED SPOT were awarded $6,000 in funding from the Walton Sustainability Solutions Festival at SEED SPOT’s second Demo Day.
Innovative HITECH Healthcare Solutions ($3,000), Guardian NPX ($2,000) and Box Play for Kids ($1,000) were identified and honored as the three companies that best developed solutions to sustainability challenges. The Sustainability Solutions Festival, a program at ASU’s Rob and Melani Walton Sustainability Solutions Initiatives in the Global Institute of Sustainability, encourages, rewards and celebrates inventors, entrepreneurs, designers and creative thinkers who develop solutions to sustainability challenges.
“We are very excited to make these modest awards to these three inspirational, blossoming ventures,” said Patricia Reiter, director of the Walton Sustainability Solutions Initiatives. “Each of these companies creatively address environmental, social and economic challenges through their products and their business plans.”
The seventeen ventures that make up the incubator’s fall cohort each had three minutes to pitch their ideas to a capacity audience at the Orpheum Theatre in downtown Phoenix. Each participating venture is required to address some aspect of social impact as part of its business plan.
"Our partnership with ASU and the Sustainability Solutions Festival enables these ventures to have access to expertise and networks that will provide better connections with the broader community and enhance their impact in the world," said Courtney Klein, co-founder and CEO of SEED SPOT.
Innovative HITECH Healthcare Solutions is developing communication and notification tools and apps to securely connect health care providers to patients through more direct and efficient channels. Its mobile device-based CARES app allows providers to create a real-time connection, improving the potential for higher patient understanding, follow up, compliance and satisfaction.
Guardian NPX identified head lice as a primary source for more than 12 million children to be removed from school for up to weeks at a time, so they have developed an all-natural, FDA-approved treatment that removes lice and nits to get the student back in class within a day. Guardian NPX has integrated a one-to-one program where the company donates a bottle of their treatment for every bottle purchased.
Box Play for Kids was inspired by the company’s daughter, who preferred to play more with stickers and boxes than the toys they contained. Hence the eco-friendly, 100 percent recycled stickers that turn cartons, tubes and boxes into new toys that stimulate curiosity, enthusiasm and learning in kids.
Each of these startups will be featured through the Sustainability Solutions Festival week, Feb. 17-22, at venues throughout Tempe and Phoenix. This inaugural festival features a variety of events for everyone – from young students, to scholars, to leaders of industry – in a vibrant showcase for and about sustainability solutions. Festival partners include the GreenBiz Forum, the Sustainability Consortium, Arizona Science Center, the Arizona Solar Summit and the Arizona SciTech Festival.
SEED SPOT is now accepting applications for entrepreneurs interested in joining the Spring 2014 SEED SPOT cohort. Application deadline is Jan. 24.