change:WATER Labs

Who's on your team?

Diana Yousef (CEO; AB Biosciences Harvard, PhD Biochemistry Cornell, MBA & MA International Development Columbia, RA at MIT)

Huda Elasaad (CTO; MechE MIT, MS Envir Eng UMich, BS Geosciences McGill, RA @ MIT D-LAb); Yongji Wang (Systems Engineering; MS Math Univ Cambridge, PhD CEE MIT)

Matt Rosen (Development & Production; BS MechE Tufts, MSEM MIT); Yunteng Cao (Chem Engineering; PhD CEE MIT)

Nadir Ait-Laoussine (Strategy/Biz Dev, BS Envir Sci UMich, MA Urban Planning Harvard GSD)

What problem are you trying to solve?

2.6Bn people around the world lack access to safe, dignified sanitation. This is because these people largely live "off-line" (i.e. with no access to power or plumbing). When there is no way to flush away sewage, the cost of sewage removal becomes unsustainably costly.

What is your solution?

Our solution to overflowing off-line sewage is to shrink it. We are developing the next generation portable toilet to vaporize off-line sewage. We've developed a material that passively, rapidly vaporizes the liquid content of sewage, releasing only pure water vapor. Leveraging this material, we are developing a portable evporative toilet for homes with no power or plumbing. The toilet uses our material to vaporize (or "flush away") 95% of daily sewage volumes at the point of generation. This toilet will go anywhere, fit any home, is completely stand-alone, zero-pollutant discharge, and won't strain local water resources.

What inspired you to start your company?

Diana & Huda are from the Middle East, and wanted to do something to help with water strain and scarcity in the Region. As we learned about the sanitation crisis faced by refugees in Za'atari, and the broader problems of gender-based violence that is sanitation-related, and the high number of girls who drop out of schools that lack proper toilets. The problem of off-line sanitation was daunting, but solving it has a huge multiplier effect on peace, planet and prosperity.

What's been the most surprising aspect of this process?

How many times we've lived to see another day. Also, how important telling the story is--that is how you attract team, partners, funding.

What’s been the most valuable piece of advice you’ve received?

Talk to your customers! Go with your passion!

What are you most looking forward to for the Launch finals?

telling our story!!

CareMobile Transportation

Who's on your team?

Kelley Barclay: is the CareMobile CEO and is leading operations. She has 15 years’ experience as adult care and social worker in the DC area and saw the need first hand for quality transportation. She has excellent marketing/interpersonal skills, deep industry expertise, and a strong network with LTC facilities in DC. School: George Mason University - Masters in Health and Human Services.

Kalhan Koul: is responsible for technology and analytics. He was a product manager for Capital One and also has founded a tech startup in the past (Athledo.com). Kalhan runs the website, online ad campaigns (currently at 5x ROI), and is leading the design and development of the care-mobile platform. School: MIT Sloan - MBA, University of Pennsylvania - Undergraduate.

Thompson Warren: is leading the business strategy efforts. He comes from strong background in growth strategy and market analysis, having worked for McKinsey & Co. for 3 years. Thompson is currently leading business strategy and market research efforts. School: MIT Sloan – MBA, Brown University - Undergraduate

Vedaant Kukadia: is heavily involved in building out the first iteration of CareMobile patient portal and is currently studying computer science at MIT. He has significant experience in developing start-ups, having launched two previous companies (Khumbu Clothing and SEAL-IT). School: MIT - Undergraduate

What problem are you trying to solve?

The Non-Emergency Medical Transportation (NEMT) is a multi-billion-dollar industry that is socially important, long overlooked, and in need of disruption. NEMT providers offer specialized, wheel-chair capable transportation to and from medical appointments for the elderly and the disabled. For decades, existing companies have remained complacent, providing notoriously unreliable, poor quality services with little improvement. NEMT resembles taxis before Uber but worse. Drivers are paid minimum wage with zero training in adult-care and are only occasionally licensed. Companies still rely on fax machines for booking and routinely show-up several hours late.

Vulnerable customers are trapped by bad options and no alternatives. Family members and caregivers have no trusted partner to care for patients from pick-up to drop-off. In the words of one long time NEMT user, “Please do something! Anything will be better than what exists.”

What is your solution?

Fusing a technology platform with a new service model, CareMobile aims to radically improve NEMT. Leveraging passionate adult care professionals as both drivers and care coordinators, CareMobile provides empathy-driven, end-to-end assisted-care services. Complementing this, our care-management technology platform provides customers and care-givers streamlined access to scheduling, payment, service customization, and shared patient information.

Our integrated service and technology solution enables entirely new care options. Using CareMobile’s platform, care-givers and family members can remotely coordinate complex services and view critical patient information without needing to attend appointments. If a family member hundreds of miles away becomes wheel-chair bound and needs to visit a doctor, CareMobile is the company you will trust to care for your loved-one from pick-up, through appointment, to drop-off.

What inspired you to start your company?

One of our founders, Kelley Barclay experienced first-hand the widespread problems within the NEMT industry while working as a healthcare professional for 15 years. She felt that a holistic, empathy-driven, and care-oriented approach to NEMT services would greatly benefit patients, patient’s family, and case workers. Frustrated by existing services, she set out to do better. Along the way, she gathered a passionate founding team that wanted to combine her new service approach with technology that would open entirely new care options.

What's been the most surprising aspect of this process?

How open customers and care-givers were in sharing deeply personal experiences with our team during market research interviewees.

What’s been the most valuable piece of advice you’ve received?

Always have a relentless focus on the customer to make sure you are solving the right problems.

What are you most looking forward to for the Launch finals?

Sharing the stage with all the fantastic companies that are coming out of MIT.

Introducing AquaFresco

This is the seventh post of our new interview series to introduce our eight finalists in the week leading up to the Launch finals. To see AquaFresco and other teams pitching on the big stage, come to the Launch finals at Kresge Auditorium on May 11!

Register on Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/mit-100k-launch-finale-2016-tickets-24292254788?

Join the Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/592551840898846/

Stay posted by following us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/mit100k

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Team Name: AquaFresco

Team Members: Sasha Huang, Chris Lai, Alina Rwei

Q: Give us a 1-sentence pitch of your idea!

A: It’s the next-generation cleaning system that saves 95% of water and detergent in processes such as laundry, car-wash and industrial cleaning, building a better cleaning for a better future.

Q: Why did you decide to apply to the 100K?

A: Being able to compete in the MIT 100K has been one of our dreams since coming to MIT. It is a prestigious competition that gains so much recognition. Of course we are aiming for the final 100K prize to launch our vision, yet just the experience of participation in the 100K competition was a dream-come-true for us.

Q: What's been the most surprising aspect of this process?

A: It is surprising, in a good way, to find that our society is really supportive of entrepreneurs and that the network is strong and wide. Here at MIT and the greater Boston area, people who are interested in entrepreneurship are encouraged to pursue their dreams and make a difference.  

Q: What’s been the most valuable piece of advice you’ve received?

A: Starting as engineers, we began with speaking really technical things using really technical languages. However, through the process, we have learned to speak an idea not using technical languages but the words that can be clearly deliver to general public. The advice on how we can convey our idea better is the most valuable piece we have received.

Q: What’s been your biggest accomplishment in this process so far?

A: Building a prototype! It definitely feels good when the things you want to build is not just on paper but can be built in real life!

Q: What are you most looking forward to for the Launch finals?

A: Meeting people, bouncing-off ideas from discussions, seeing how other startups make an impact, and just simply being immersed in the atmosphere of the Launch finals.

Introducing DoneGood

This is the sixth post of our new interview series to introduce our eight finalists in the week leading up to the Launch finals. To see DoneGood and other teams pitching on the big stage, come to the Launch finals at Kresge Auditorium on May 11!

Register on Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/mit-100k-launch-finale-2016-tickets-24292254788?

Join the Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/592551840898846/

Stay posted by following us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/mit100k

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Team Name: DoneGood

Team Members: Garrett Parrish, Scott Jacobsen, Cullen Schwarz

Q: Give us a 1-sentence pitch of your idea!

A: DoneGood makes it easy to find businesses that share your values--and create change with every purchase.

Q: Why did you decide to apply to the 100K?

A: What could be more prestigious for a tech startup than recognition by the nation’s premiere technology university?  How could we not apply? We’ve come to see the enormous effort MIT undertakes to make the world a better place. In the simplest terms, MIT’s mission is to teach its students to use technology to build a better society. Since our company mission is so aligned with that goal, we believed that we could be united with MIT toward a common purpose.

Q: What new trend are you most excited about (besides your own)?

A: We’re excited about the movement of entrepreneurs that want their venture to be a positive force for change in the world, and the movement of consumers that want to support those businesses.  The old way of thinking is that “business” exists to maximize profits every quarter at all costs, and then charities exist to do good things for people or the planet.  

That way of thinking is really being disrupted.  There are more and more social impact companies and public benefit corporations started every day.  Even major corporations are focusing more on corporate social responsibility.  More businesses are realizing they want their company to operate in a socially responsible way, and are proving that business can be a force for good and be very profitable at the same time.  We do what we do because we want to help these entrepreneurs be more and more successful.

Q: What’s been the most valuable piece of advice you’ve received?

A: That we should be careful with advice.  Early on somebody told us about “advisor whiplash”.  The more you talk to advisors, the more contradictory advice you’re likely to get.  The advice was, seek out and respect advice from experts with varying perspectives. But at the end of the day, it’s your company, you know it best, and the advice from experts will often send you in opposite directions, so take in all the advice but then make up your own mind.  

So we try to aggressively seek out expert opinions but also keep in mind that you can’t just take the first piece of advice you get on any topic as gospel.  That said, there are times when you hear a nearly unanimous chorus from a lot of really smart people, and in those cases, it becomes pretty clear we should probably follow those recommendations.
 

Q: What’s been your biggest accomplishment in this process so far?

A: Creating a platform that people are using and telling their friends about! Meeting people who have already heard of DoneGood or already have it on their phones is the best.