SwatTank 2017
Finalists and participants of the 2017 SwatTank Innovation Competition and Lax Networking Reception.
Finalists
Switchboard
Michael Piazza '17 and Eric Wang '18
Mentor: David Feinstein '90
Switchboard is a novel service that allows students to connect anonymously with other students at their college via text message. Students can safely expand their friend groups, seek academic and social support, and eventually receive formal support through a collaboration with Swarthmore's student led peer counseling service, Speak2Swatties. After a student verifies her school email, she can connect with a partner by major, interest, or class year – or totally randomly. Conversations on Switchboard are safe and fully anonymous. In a vibrant community like Swarthmore, there’s no reason a student should ever feel like there’s nobody talk to.
Michael Piazza ’17 and Eric Wang ’19 developed Switchboard this semester, and launched the night before SwatTank. Switchboard is rapidly gaining traction in the student body, with more than 2000 messages sent by almost 100 users across every class year.
** First Place
New Dae Farms
Navid Kiassat '20, Max Rogow '20, Rebecca Fisher (Haverford), and Joey Leroux (Haverford)
Mentor: Scott Young '06
New Dae Farms was founded to feed the world in a sustainable way. We are starting with cricket feed, a high-protein food source. By recycling food waste from TriCo dining halls and utilizing campus gardens, we can create a safe and low environmental impact protein supply for our community.
**Second Place
Collab
Meiri Anto '17, Michelle Ma '20, Seimi Park
Mentor: Giridhar N. Srinivasan '98
Collab is a social impact advisory firm that works to integrate onsite childcare into office and co-working spaces. By making marginal changes to existing infrastructure, Collab creates spaces conducive to both professional and parental development. Collab is made for any and all who identify as parents and we encourage individuals across the entire gender spectrum to participate and collaborate for gender equality, because we truly believe we are better when we work together.
** Third Place, Best Pitch
Zing
Natasha Markov-Riss '20, Roman Shemakov '20, and Augustin Burchell '20
Mentor: Ted Chan '02
Zing provides locking, solar-powered cell phone charging stations catered exclusively to college campuses and custom designed to reflect the campus community. We will start by bringing Zing charging stations to Swarthmore, but we plan to expand from there--our goal is to help students at other colleges bring charging stations to their campuses. As Zing charging stations spread across the country, a community will form around them. Our vision is a grassroots, student-led, action-based network of student entrepreneurs committed to pragmatic, cohesive, and sustained environmental change.
** Fourth Place
Participants
Gameplan
Jason Jin '20, Won Chung '18, William Lee '20, Bunn Buraparat '20
Mentor: Mark Handweger '85
Making plans should be fun and spontaneous. Gameplan is a personalized social map that allows you to convenient visualize your events and friends around you. All your events will be in one place, in an easy to digest and tailored format. Making an event to send to friends is as simple as setting a marker on a map, allowing you to make more plans, like grab food and play pick-up sports, and keep track of them in one app. Spend less time coordinating and more time doing things together.
