Four Cal Poly students attended the 40th annual Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization (CEO) Global Conference & Pitch Competition held in Tampa, Florida, immersing themselves in Cal Poly’s practical learning approach known as ‘Learn By Doing.’ CEO is a global network for collegiate entrepreneurs and innovators with more than 250 college and university chapters; they support and inspire the growth of any student that seeks to be entrepreneurial. 

Out of the 600 startup teams that applied, Cal Poly business administration seniors Benjamin Arts and Mathew Reis made it to the top 25 as finalists with their startup Té Piña. 

Té Piña is a pineapple-based beverage that provides consumers with a healthier alternative to energy drinks. 

Arts attended the CEO event in 2022 as a spectator, having been recommended by faculty as a student who would effectively represent the Cal Poly entrepreneurship program. This year, after feeling confident in their startup, Arts and Reis decided to apply to the competition.

Prior to the CEO event, Arts and Reis participated in the Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) Summer Accelerator, a three-month program that provides Cal Poly students and recent graduates with the resources needed to turn their startups into real, scalable businesses.

“During the Summer Accelerator, every Friday you are pitching and receiving constructive criticism. After going through an experience of 12 weeks of pitching, it’s really hard to be put in a scenario where you’re not ready to go under fire,” said Reis. 

Because of their involvement with the Summer Accelerator, Arts and Reis felt more equipped talking about their business than other teams pitching, Arts said.  

“With general pitching and answering certain questions, it showed that we have [pitched our business] 100 times,” Arts explained. 

Joining Arts and Reis were the President and Vice President of Cal Poly Entrepreneurs (CPE) Michelle Wu and Jacob Boyd who are both business administration sophomores. CPE is a student-run club that unifies entrepreneurs on campus. 

Each year the CEO organizers invite the President and Vice President of entrepreneurship chapters in their organization to enjoy the event as spectators. 

The CEO conference was a great opportunity to network and get more involved in the startup culture, Boyd said. 

“Seeing other leaders involved and being so passionate about what they’re doing motivates me as well,” Wu explained. “It’s a reminder that we are all in this together.” 

Going into the conference, Boyd was concerned that compared to other entrepreneurship chapters, CPE would be lacking as a club. To his surprise, members of other chapters came to CPE for advice and “being able to help them out was pretty cool,” he said. 

Reis, Arts, Boyd and Wu all found the CEO event to be invaluable in terms of meeting mentors, participating in workshops, expanding their network and taking advice from keynote speakers, they said. 

“The whole experience was ‘Learn By Doing’ and it showed us what it is like to be a real entrepreneur,” Wu said. “I’m grateful to have experiences like this coming out of Cal Poly.” 

Within the four walls of his childhood home in Hawaii, economics graduate Aidan Riehl embarked on an entrepreneurial journey, which is contributing to an environmental shift towards sustainability.

Sophomore year of college, Riehl wanted to create a business with a positive impact on the environment and society. However, he did not know what to address first. 

One day, as Riehl walked along the beaches of his hometown, he realized the problem was right in front of his face. The issue he dealt with daily was the alarming amount of plastic pollution around him. 

Growing up in Oahu, Hawaii, Riehl said he witnessed the effects of plastic pollution his whole life. Determined to make a difference, Riehl set his sights on tackling this issue and promoting a zero-waste lifestyle.

Riehl’s epiphany led him to ask the question, why don’t people shop sustainably or plastic-free? The answer became clear to him — the prices are too expensive. 

That is when the idea for Riehl’s startup, Ecoternatives, formed. 

Ecoternatives is an online marketplace that sells sustainable and plastic-free products at more affordable prices. 

As a one-man team, Riehl took time off from school, stayed in Hawaii and operated his business from his room. He bought $3,000 worth of products and shipped packages by himself. 

“I bought dressers from Craigslist and shoved soaps and lip balms in them,” Riehl said. “My mom would walk into my room and smell all the flora and sweet scents and think ‘This is not what a teenage boy’s room should smell like.’” 

Ecoternatives started growing through word-of-mouth recommendations, Riehl said. Then, he started sharing his website through social media channels and reached out to zero-waste nonprofits to help promote his business.

Over time, Ecoternatives evolved into not only a basic e-commerce store but also a community, Riehl said. 

“I’ve created such a cohort of people who are so passionate about this problem, who are very like-minded and who believe sustainability is too expensive,” Riehl explained. 

Riehl said Ecoternatives is different from other zero-waste stores because of his commitment to sourcing products. Unlike other zero-waste stores, Riehl does not settle for pre-vetted options. 

To find products for Ecoternatives, Riehl said he takes days researching the most affordable and sustainable options. He ensures that the product and its company follow strict social and environmental guidelines; for instance, energy-efficient sourcing, supply chain transparency and ethical labor practices. Finally, he tests the different products to see how they compare.

After working on Ecoternatives for two-and-a-half years, Riehl applied for the Cal Poly Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (CIE) Summer Accelerator. The Summer Accelerator is a program for Cal Poly students that provides them with mentorship, $10,000 in funding and other resources to help build their business. 

Ecoternatives was one of the eight teams accepted to the program. 

Riehl described the Summer Accelerator as an “amazing opportunity.” He appreciates the ability to speak with experts in different industries who help him better understand the parts of his business, he said. 

“The CIE has helped me grow Ecoternatives by connecting me with the right people at the right moments,” Riehl said. 

Ecoternatives is currently running a fulfillment center in Texas that ships orders to the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada. He has made $110,000 in sales with nine months of active business. Ecoternatives is also donating a portion of its profits to other zero-waste nonprofits with each order. 

Looking forward, Riehl wants to create his own sustainable products to sell on Ecoternatives for an even lower cost. 

Riehl aims to extend Ecoternatives beyond commerce. He wants to organize beach cleanups and educational workshops for kids on how the consumption of goods can affect the environment. 

“Working on Ecoternatives made me more optimistic about sustainability because I’ve learned all the positive things my business can do,” Riehl said. “I’m very excited to expand our overall environmental and societal impact and show people that we can make sustainability more affordable.”

Ecoternatives, along with the rest of the 2023 Summer Accelerator cohort, will pitch their startup and showcase their progress at Demo Day on Sept. 8 at 4 p.m. at SLO Brew Rock. Tickets are available here.

As material engineering senior William Burns was passing time watching Youtube videos, he stumbled across one in particular that caught his attention. Burns watched as the man in the video threw his kitchen scraps into a bucket, and out crawled protein-rich bugs that he used to feed his chickens.  

“I thought that it was the coolest idea – waste in and food out,” Burns said. “How can I make this into something larger?”

About one third of all food is thrown away, where it rots in landfills and produces methane which is very harmful to the environment, according to Burns. 

The YouTube video he watched inspired him to solve that problem. 

That is how his startup ENTEIN came to life. ENTEIN is utilizing food waste to grow insects as an affordable animal feed protein supplement. 

At ENTEIN, Burns and his co-founder Cameron Yartz, a mechanical engineering senior, are repurposing wasted food through insects. Over 15 days, larvae eat the wasted food. Then, Burns and Yartz harvest the larvae and turn them into highly nutritious and protein-rich animal feed, they explained. 

Burns met Yartz through their Introduction to Entrepreneurship (BUS 310) class and Customer Development (BUS 313) class. Although separate classes, their courses were conducted together. Over the course, they developed ENTEIN. 

Burns and Yartz are both passionate about keeping the environment healthy and sustainable. 

“Environmental damage is a problem that everyone will have to deal with at some point,” Yartz said. “It is not going to be one solution that solves this problem once and for all for everybody. It’s about making environmental choices in every area.” 

Burns grew up in Northern Oregon where there has been a lot of clear-cutting, deforestation and pollution in the waterways, he said. 

“I think moving forward, for our country and the world, we need to focus on sustainability or there won’t be anything left for our future generations,” Burns said. 

The co-founders want to become more environmentally friendly by producing a product that reduces the amount of waste stream in landfills which harms the environment. 

Feeling confident in ENTEIN, Burns pitched their idea at the Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship’s (CIE) Innovation Quest (iQ). 

iQ is a competition that helps entrepreneurs develop their ideas into scalable companies by providing them with the necessary resources and funding. 

ENTEIN competed and won the Environmental Impact Award, receiving $5,000 in prize money. The Environmental Impact Award is awarded to the team whose innovation focuses on environmentalism and sustainability. 

Winning the environmental award validated the fact that their product is truly helpful for the environment, Burns explained. 

iQ propelled Burns and Yartz to apply for the CIE Summer Accelerator, a 13-week program that provides entrepreneurs with $10,000 in funding, mentorship and other resources to launch a company. 

ENTEIN was one of the eight teams accepted into the program. 

As a mechanical engineering major, Yartz said he felt intimidated to join the Summer Accelerator because he thought he would not have business skills to offer his team. However, he soon realized that many people in the program are not business majors. Yartz’s advisors also quickly helped him understand the business world and language, he said. 

“It’s been a joy to get involved in something outside of my comfort zone,” Yartz explained. “I feel like every time I sit down for a presentation or a lecture, I come away with immense knowledge.” 

Burns said he appreciates the CIE for providing them with resources and mentors that are willing to help with different aspects of their business including finances and marketing. 

“Any part of our business that we are having a little bit of trouble with, there is always someone to ask,” Burns said.  

By the end of the Summer Accelerator, Burns and Yartz hope to sell their product at local stores so that it can get into the hands of people who want to contribute to a more sustainable future. 

“The animal feed industry is one area that could use some change, and we believe that our solution is going to help improve environmental choices and make them accessible to all sorts of people,” Yartz said. 

ENTEIN, along with the rest of the 2023 Summer Accelerator cohort, will pitch their startup and showcase their progress at Demo Day, on Sept. 8 at 4 p.m. at SLO Brew Rock. Tickets are available here.

At 15 years old, computer science senior Luis Guzman was offered a unique opportunity to work in a party rental company for his uncle. From there, he used the money he earned to create his own mechanical bull rental business. 

Although hard work, Guzman enjoyed running his own company. He was so passionate about it that he encouraged his friend and now co-founder, Maricela Carrillo, to start her own business as well.

Carrillo, a mechanical engineering senior, took Guzman’s advice and created a photo booth rental company. After three months, her business took off. 

“As I started to take on more clients, I saw first-hand how messy communication with them could get,” Carrillo said. “Being a small business vendor, there was no way for me to upscale.”

Coincidentally, Guzman approached Carrillo with the same issues. Their businesses were spreading solely through word of mouth, it was hard to establish a customer base and the resources needed to grow their business were expensive. This made expanding very difficult, they said. 

Despite desperate attempts to find a solution to their rental business problems, they came out empty-handed. So, Guzman and Carrillo created their own answer, PlanForMí. 

PlanForMí is a startup that leverages artificial intelligence (AI) to simplify the event-planning process by easily connecting local vendors and customers. 

Their startup is tackling two big issues in the event-planning world: small vendors’ inability to grow because of limited ways to promote their company and customers struggling to find reliable vendors while staying within their budget.

Guzman and Carrillo have spoken to various planners, directors, and coordinators of events to gain insights into their event-planning process. They all mentioned how difficult it is to find vendors because there is no singular platform that compiles various vendors together.

PlanForMí streamlines the search for vendors, allowing customers to easily read reviews and compare options that are in their price range. It also provides a platform for vendors to scale their business by putting them in touch with new clients. 

What makes Guzman and Carrillo uniquely able to run their startup is their own experience in the event planning industry, they explained. 

“We’re not coming from a business background, we’re coming from our own personal vendor experience,” Carrillo said. 

Guzman started developing the idea for their startup in his Interdisciplinary Entrepreneurial Senior Design Project course (ENGR 465) class. He then joined the Cal Poly Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship (CIE) Hatchery, an incubator program that gives students hands-on experience launching a company and mentorship to develop their entrepreneurial skills. 

Guzman said the Hatchery provided him with many resources as well as introduced him to the CIE Innovation Quest (iQ). iQ encourages entrepreneurs to pursue their innovative ideas and helps with the funding needed to launch their business.  

Guzman and Carrillo participated in iQ 2023. Although they did not win, Guzman described it as a “great experience.” 

“It was the first time we were getting feedback on our business model and on our target audience. It really helped us grow this idea,” Guzman said. 

Determined to apply their feedback and continue developing their idea, Guzman and Carrillo applied to the CIE Summer Accelerator, a 13-week program that gives entrepreneurs $10,000 in funding and other resources to help build their business. 

PlanForMí was one of the eight teams accepted to the program.

“The CIE has really helped solidify what direction our business model needs to take in order to thrive,” Guzman said. 

As an engineering major, Carrillo said that the CIE has helped her gain a better understanding of the business world. Just six weeks into the program, she said she has already grown “exponentially fast.” 

Through the Summer Accelerator, Guzman and Carrillo want to continue their customer development and eventually expand across California. 

The co-founders are excited to build a community between customers and vendors and make planning events just as enjoyable as the events themselves. 

“It’s more than just an event planning industry. It is a community where event planners and vendors can depend on each other and at the very end, we’re helping each other’s businesses grow,” Guzman said. 

PlanForMí, along with the rest of the 2023 Summer Accelerator cohort, will pitch their startup and showcase their progress at Demo Day, on Sept. 8 at 4 p.m. at SLO Brew Rock. Tickets are available here.

With a unique motivation to enable a safer and healthier drinking culture, industrial engineering graduate Owen Works, biomedical engineering graduate who is now pursuing his Master’s of Science (MS) in Biomedical Engineering Camden Ford and psychology senior Aynsley Ramsaur are joining forces to address irresponsible binge drinking. 

Their startup, DrinkWise, is developing a non-invasive, one-time-use SmartPatch that uses chemical sensing based on sweat to measure and estimate Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) levels. Their SmartPatch continuously monitors BAC over time which allows users to simply look at their arm and track their level of intoxication. 

Works first had the idea for DrinkWise while taking Innovation and Entrepreneurship Through Disruptive Technologies (BUS 408), where he learned about Smart Tattoos. 

Smart Tattoos are sensing interfaces that users place on their skin to help monitor different health metrics. 

Works was preparing to attend an upcoming music festival at the time which is considered a high-risk setting for high levels of alcohol consumption, according to the National Library of Medicine. 

“I had this idea: What if my friends and I had something we could put on our arm that monitored our alcohol levels?” he said. “It would help keep us safer.” 

Works decided to pitch his idea at the Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) Elevator Pitch Competition (EPC). EPC is a competition where students pitch startup ideas for a chance to win cash prizes. 

Works’ pitch for DrinkWise won the competition’s top prize of $1,000. That moment felt like validation for his idea and pushed him to pursue it more seriously, Works said. 

Not only did the EPC fuel Works’s desire to pursue DrinkWise, his understanding of alcohol abuse did too. While Works was in high school, his father suffered from alcoholism.  

“Having grown up around that, I was always a lot more conscientious of my own alcohol intake and habits,” Works said.

Fortunately, Works’s father is in recovery, but alcohol abuse is still a prevalent issue in the United States. Over 29 million people ages 12 and older had Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) in the past year, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

Works believes a product like DrinkWise can enable people to track their alcohol use and help them make better decisions. 

Ford got involved with DrinkWise after it was promoted in his Biomedical Engineering Design (BMED 455) class, where he instantly became intrigued. 

“I’m a college student — we are all college students, and we definitely have seen what alcohol can do to people,” Ford said.

He thought the idea was relevant and wanted to help bring it to life. 

During Ford’s time in college and involvement in Greek Life, he said he has witnessed irresponsible use of alcohol.

This problem isn’t exclusive to Cal Poly. About 1 in 4 college students report academic consequences from drinking, including missing and falling behind in class, doing poorly on exams or papers and receiving lower grades overall, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. 

College students’ alcohol use can lead to detrimental effects. In fact, 1,519 college students between the ages of 18 and 24 die from alcohol-related unintentional injuries each year, also according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

Ford said he wants to “inspire” college students to better manage their alcohol consumption and reduce heavy drinking. 

Ramsaur became interested in DrinkWise after watching Works’ pitch at EPC. Ramsaur and Works later met in their Customer Development (BUS 313) class. She realized the potential of DrinkWise and joined the team as a co-founder. 

Ramsaur recognized the safety concerns that DrinkWise addresses, especially as a young woman. 

“If you’re walking home or getting in an Uber, knowing that you are drunker than you feel is really important,” Ramsaur said. “It’s important to be conscious of your body and how your body reacts to certain things.”

Women are at a greater health and safety risk when consuming alcohol than men, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. 

The same study suggests that women are more likely than men to experience hangovers and alcohol-induced blackouts.

Ramsaur quickly saw how DrinkWise could help herself and other women become safer and healthier. 

In April of 2023, DrinkWise participated in Innovation Quest (iQ), a competition hosted by the CIE that encourages entrepreneurs to pursue their innovative ideas and a chance to win up to $30,000 in cash prizes. 

DrinkWise was one of 14 finalists to pitch their startup at iQ 2023. Although they did not win the competition, iQ allowed the co-founders to look at all the different aspects of their business and create an initial framework, Works said. 

Following iQ, the DrinkWise co-founders decided to apply to the CIE Summer Accelerator, a 13-week program that provides entrepreneurs with the resources to launch a real, scalable company. They were one of eight teams accepted to the program. 

“We’re all committed for a summer, get funding and we get all these crazy good mentors,” Works said. “There wasn’t anything I could think of that I would rather have done this summer.” 

Ramsaur and Ford expressed their gratitude towards the Summer Accelerator’s various resources and the opportunity to receive guidance from knowledgeable mentors.

“It has been the most amazing program I’ve ever been a part of,” Ramsaur said. 

By the end of the Summer Accelerator, the co-founders hope to finalize an accurate, usable and testable prototype. They are excited to save lives by promoting healthier drinking, they said. 

“We want to foster a culture where people have healthier habits and still have fun, but responsibly,” Works said.

DrinkWise, along with the rest of the 2023 Summer Accelerator cohort, will pitch their startup and showcase their progress at Demo Day, on Sept. 8 at 4 p.m. at SLO Brew Rock. Tickets are available here.

Getting sick in college can seem inevitable. When students are living in close-quarters, sharing classroom spaces and constantly socializing with new people, germs are bound to spread. 

Eighty-one percent of Cal Poly students will experience sickness at least once in a three-month span, according to business administration senior Matthew Reis. In fact, catching a sickness is so common at Cal Poly that students coined a term for the epidemic: the Poly Plague. 

As a student and fraternity member at Cal Poly, Reis was in the midst of the college social scene. He experienced the anguish of the Poly Plague time and time again. 

“I was very sick all the time just from normal college activities,” he said. “I was getting tonsillitis and a lot of inflammation. My second year, I contracted mono.” 

Reis felt extremely frustrated with his persistent sickness and his inability to find a reliable cure. As a result, he took matters into his own hands and sought a solution. 

Through some research, Reis came across a recipe for a pineapple tea that worked as a natural remedy for a cough and cold. After making the drink for himself, he noticed his respiratory symptoms decreasing quickly. He compared his results to over-the-counter (OTC) medicine, for instance, NyQuil, and realized how much more rejuvenated he felt. 

Reis learned that OTC medicine simply suppresses one’s symptoms so people can sleep better, but does not truly contribute to a speedy recovery. Fortunately, because pineapples are packed with vitamins and minerals, they significantly support immunity. 

Soon enough, Reis’s friends noticed the pineapple tea fighting his stubborn sickness and winning. They urged him to make the beverage for themselves so that they could also avoid dreadful college sicknesses. 

“Eventually, I was thinking, it would be nice if I could make this something that I do, and other people benefited from,” Reis said. 

That is when he came up with the idea for his startup Té Piña, a company creating a pineapple-based beverage with vitamins, minerals and anti-inflammatory agents intended to help people recover from and prevent respiratory illnesses. 

Reis took his idea and pitched it at the 54-hour-long Cal Poly Entrepreneurs (CPE) event where developers, designers and innovators can meet for the first time and develop a business together. At the event, business administration senior Benjamin Arts watched Reis pitch and loved the idea. 

Arts felt that Té Piña was a “product with meaning that could actually change someone’s life and make them feel better.” 

After recognizing each other’s strong interest in Té Piña, they decided to become co-founders. 

Reis and Arts aim to create the perfect combination of ingredients that will make Té Piña a better option than alternatives like ginger shots, tea refreshers and caffeinated drinks. 

“Options such as Yerba Mate exist that provide customers with the facade of a healthy drink when in reality, it is just another energy drink. On the other side of the scale are health shots, where customers sacrifice taste for the benefits,” Reis explained. “Té Piña can fix customer’s pain by providing a beverage that is both healthy and delicious.”

Té Piña will be a beverage that is both mild in sugar content and adequate with the amount of caffeine, Reis said. 

So, how does Té Piña do it? Pineapple skins. Pineapple skins are what they use as their primary immune booster as they are packed with nutrients and vitamin C, Reis said. 

Feeling confident in their idea, the co-founders applied to the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (CIE) Summer Accelerator, a 13-week extensive program that provides participants with mentorship, networking opportunities and $10,000 in seed funding to help grow their business. Té Piña was one of eight teams accepted into the program.

Reis explained that the CIE has been beneficial in helping him get in touch with the right people to get his idea off the ground.

 “The CIE will support you and has the resources to bring you up and help you pivot and adapt. That’s how they develop you as an entrepreneur,” Reis said. 

During the Summer Accelerator, the co-founders aim to finalize their recipe, establish a nutrition label and certify their product so they can sell Té Piña locally. 

“I hope that we can make Té Piña accessible, available and affordable for all students to solve their Poly Plague problems,” Reis said. 

Té Piña, along with the rest of the 2023 Summer Accelerator cohort, will pitch their startup and showcase their progress at Demo Day, on Sept. 8 at 4 p.m. at SLO Brew Rock. Tickets are available here.

Moving to a new city sounds invigorating, and it is, but this change can be just as difficult as it is rewarding. 

61% of young adults in their 20s are experiencing high levels of loneliness, according to software engineering graduate Parker Callison and mechanical engineering graduate Samantha Moberly. Of this 61%, many are graduates who moved to a new city after college, they said. 

As recent graduates themselves, Callison and Moberly understand just how daunting it can be to move away from one’s community and lose their support system. 

Callison experienced this first-hand after he took a couple of years off from college. When he returned to school, most of his friends had already graduated. Callison said he struggled to create new relationships. 

Additionally, Moberly regularly heard her friends in college express anxiety about how to meet new people post-grad and avoid feelings of loneliness. This anxiety stemmed from the fact that they would no longer be in classrooms or extracurriculars that surrounded them with people their age.

“Recent grads especially are experiencing this problem of loneliness and actively looking for a solution after they leave behind their college community,” Moberly said.

To create a solution to a problem that affected not only their friends but also themselves, Callison and Moberly teamed up to create their startup Social Spark, a social networking platform aimed to combat loneliness by helping recent college graduates create genuine friendships in their new cities. 

Through Social Spark, users can sign up for weekend-long events in their new city. Trained leaders will guide these groups through a range of fun and dynamic activities that will help create new friendships. These leaders go through scenario-based training where they are provided tips on how to facilitate conversations and create deeper conversations between strangers. 

They began developing their startup during their Interdisciplinary Entrepreneurial Senior Design Project course (ENGR 465), a team-based interdisciplinary senior design project that allows engineering and business students to collaborate and create new solutions to real-world problems.

Callison and Moberly explained that despite virtual connections through social media, people still feel lonely. Additionally, with the rise of remote jobs, many relocated graduates are creating very surface-level connections, they said. The co-founders wanted to create a healthier way for people to socialize, and that was through in-person events where deeper connections can be made. 

“We really did not want to just be an app that connects people virtually,” Moberly said. “We want to bring people in person because we think real friendships are made in real life, face-to-face.” 

After their senior project course, Callison and Moberly saw potential in their idea and applied to the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (CIE) Summer Accelerator, a 13-week program that provides Cal Poly students and recent graduates with the resources needed to turn their startup ideas into real, scalable businesses. 

Social Spark was one of the eight teams accepted to the program.

“We feel so fortunate to have all the mentors around us to support us,” Moberly said. “It has been amazing so far, having such a great support system.” 

During the Summer Accelerator, Callison and Moberly aim to run several pilot events and gain valuable feedback. They hope to learn how to better facilitate friendships while creating events that are exciting and enjoyable, Callison explained. 

The co-founders said they look forward to Social Spark’s potential in tackling feelings of isolation.  

“If we can just help one person to feel less lonely, then that will be amazing on our end to get to see that impact,” Moberly said. 

Social Spark, along with the rest of the 2023 Summer Accelerator cohort, will pitch their startup and showcase their progress at Demo Day, on Sept. 8 at 4 p.m. at SLO Brew Rock. Tickets are available here.

Four Cal Poly seniors with a devotion towards the environment and the community came together to create a proactive solution for battery-caused fires in recycling facilities.  

They met as students through the Interdisciplinary Entrepreneurial Senior Design Project course (ENGR 465) which allows entrepreneurship students and engineering students to collaborate and create new solutions to real-world problems. 

Early in their senior project course, mechanical engineering majors Stefany James and Sydney Fairchild and business administration majors Penny Lane Case and Thaddeus Ziarkowski recognized each other’s passion for sustainability. 

“We all just met under this common goal of making the world better, cleaner and sustaining our resources,” Case said. 

Their startup, Nexstera Tech, is pushing the boundaries of material differentiation and detection through radar and transforming the way waste management operates. Their first product, Pyrottack, allows customers to detect lithium-ion batteries in the waste stream before they enter trucks and floors of recovery facilities.

According to Case, lithium-ion batteries can cause massive fires in recycling facilities that produce harm to the environment, people and resources. These damages cost over $1.2 billion in damages annually to the US and Canada alone, she said. 

Those working in recycling facilities are uncertain whether or not they will be safe, Fairchild explained: “At a moment’s notice, they have to stop sorting, stop doing whatever they’re doing, and become a firefighter for about five minutes, and that’s terrifying,” she said. 

Nexstera Tech is solving a real-world problem for hundreds, if not thousands, of people, Ziarkowski said. He described the potential impact of their technology as “exceptional.” 

After their senior project course, Nexstera Tech participated in Innovation Quest (iQ), a competition hosted by the Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) designed to help entrepreneurs grow their startup from an idea into a company. 

“Innovation Quest was absolutely awesome in terms of getting experience pitching,” Fairchild said. “We started realizing we’re going to get a lot of feedback very quickly within this program.” 

Nexstera Tech was one of 14 finalists to pitch their startup at iQ 2023. Although they did not win the competition, iQ allowed them to receive diverse opinions on their business, Fairchild said. 

Following iQ, the Nexstera co-founders decided to pursue their startup and apply to the CIE Summer Accelerator. They were one of eight teams accepted to the program. 

The Summer Accelerator is a 13-week program designed to give Cal Poly students and recent alumni the resources needed to launch a real, scalable company. 

“It’s awesome to get to work around people who are as enthusiastic about their work as we are,” James said. “It’s just very encouraging.” 

Towards the end of the Summer Accelerator, the co-founders are hoping to have a fully functioning prototype that will be used by a recycling facility. This way, they can continue their efforts to become more responsible with the disposal of waste and keeping recycling facility members safe. 

“Protecting these people who I care about genuinely, even if I don’t know them, and the environment at the same time has just propelled me to work with these amazing people as we continue on this journey,” Case said. 

Nexstera Tech, along with the rest of the 2023 Summer Accelerator cohort, will pitch their startup and showcase their progress at Demo Day, on Sept. 8 at 4 p.m. at SLO Brew Rock. Tickets are available here. 

Peggy Thorp was a secretary at Rug Doctor, a carpet cleaning franchise.

Thorp was “the glue that held everything together,” said Ethan Beck, whose father owned the Rug Doctor where Thorp worked. She oversaw the logistics of the business, handling administrative work like appointment bookings and timekeeping.

When Thorp eventually retired, Beck’s father attempted to do the work that she had done. Administrative work began to consume his work days.

“He was spread so thin that he had no time at all,” Beck said.

Beck soon realized, however, that a lot of the work that Thorp had done throughout the 1990s could now be automated with software — so Beck, along with his sister Isabella, created PeggyAI, a software workflow solution that automates different business processes, such as timekeeping, equipment tracking and employee safety.

“It’s a software to automate what Peggy did,” Beck said. “Thus, PeggyAI.”

The software was originally intended to be used solely for the Becks’ family businesses, but once Beck saw how helpful it could be, he set out to bring PeggyAI to businesses everywhere.

“It’s something that everybody can benefit from,” Beck said. “Because it started with just us, we want to take that to everybody else and help as many people as we can.”

Currently, Beck’s target market is agriculture companies. Through its automated workflows, PeggyAI software allows business owners to focus on other aspects of their companies.

Beck said he wants to provide more freedom to business owners by building a platform that “gives them their time back.”

Beck, who graduated from Cal Poly in 2022 with a degree in business administration, joined the Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) Hatchery shortly before graduating. The Hatchery teaches Cal Poly students how to build a business by providing resources like mentors, guest speakers and workshops that teach the fundamentals of entrepreneurship. 

“The Hatchery offers so many different resources that you can tap into and really help wherever you need it,” Beck said.

Since joining the Hatchery, Beck has benefitted from coaching and mentorship that has taught him the best practices for pitching his product. He is now able to give an informative and impactful business pitch that has already attracted clients.

PeggyAI is a fully functional product that is currently serving two clients. Beck is now working to attract more users, and he said he eventually hopes to expand PeggyAI to be “the Excel of business processes.” 

PeggyAI was “made for founders,” Beck said, and he hopes to see his startup grant those founders more freedom to focus on the things that matter most.

Camille Boiteux prepared for high school track meets with water-proof mascara.

She wanted to be picture-ready for the photographers documenting the competition, and since regular mascara often smears when it comes into contact with sweat, Boiteux thought water-proof mascara was the obvious pick for sporting events.

The only issue was that water-proof mascara can be difficult to remove, even when the wearer is trying to remove it.

Boiteux struggled to effectively remove the water-proof mascara, but she didn’t blame the mascara — it was supposed to be long-lasting, after all. Instead, she identified ineffective makeup removal methods as the problem.

Two forms of makeup remover are currently on the market: cleansing pads (like makeup wipes) and oils (like micellar water). Both forms can be insufficient, leaving makeup behind and irritating the user’s eyes, Boiteux said.

So, Boiteux, now a business administration junior at Cal Poly, set out to develop a better, more effective makeup remover and founded Swish Lash.

Swish Lash is a startup developing a makeup removal product specifically for mascara. A sponge brush doused in a makeup remover solution is attached to a metal clamp so that users can swipe their eyelashes in the same motion used to apply to mascara.

Although Boiteux began workshopping the idea during high school, she didn’t begin developing Swish Lash as a business until 2022 at Startup Marathon.

Startup Marathon is a 54-hour event hosted by the Cal Poly Entrepreneurs Club during which student innovators work through the weekend to develop a startup idea. At the event, Boiteux and her co-founder, business administration sophomore Alyson Marzocco, developed the first iterations of the Swish Lash product. Their original prototype ideas included a “PacMan shaped sponge” as well as a clamp similar to an eyelash curler.

Boiteux also participated in the the Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) Elevator Pitch Competition (EPC), where Cal Poly students have 90 seconds to pitch their innovative ideas for the chance to win cash prizes. Swish Lash won the audience choice award of $500.

“I was so shocked [(when I won]) because I’d just heard so many great pitches,” Boiteux said. “I was literally on cloud nine.”

Boiteux is now working with a group of industrial manufacturing students to develop a working prototype of her product. She hopes to finish the prototype in time for Innovation Quest (iQ), an annual prototyping and business plan competition hosted by the CIE in April. 

“We’ve been on a positive streak from Startup Marathon to Elevator Pitch, so now we really want to compete in Innovation Quest and figure out where we go from there,” Boiteux said.

She is also working with the CIE’s on-campus Hatchery, which provides Cal Poly students with the resources needed to build a business. The program allows students to attend workshops that teach the fundamentals of entrepreneurship and connects them with seasoned entrepreneurs and mentors.

Boiteux said the mentorship she has received through the Hatchery has been “truly invaluable.”

“There’s nothing like the Hatchery that can truly offer free help,” she said. “The Hatchery, as a whole, is a great network and a great community of motivated people.”

With the help of the Hatchery, Boiteux sees Swish Lash releasing an early prototype and beginning to collect customer feedback within the next year.

Eventually, she sees Swish Lash as the one product on drug store shelves that can effortlessly and effectively remove mascara.

“I just really want to see a product that genuinely makes a difference in taking off mascara for everyone that wears it,” Boiteux said.