Seattle Innovation Startup competition (SISC), one of the most influential competitions in the Seattle Entrepreneurship Circle, culminated its’ live finals on November 17th after a grueling preliminary selection process. In the three-hour live finals, ten teams competed against each other. The minute by minute selection process was at times a bit overwhelming. After a difficult questions and answer review process, six of the most influential judges in the Seattle Entrepreneurship Circle finally awarded the first prize to AIDA, a startup in the health-tech field focused on improving the patient transition process and reducing Hospital LOS (length of stay), second prize to WISER, a AI knowledge platform providing data analysis for investors, and third prize to Simple Intelligence, a search engine using deep learning technology in the vertical area of intellectual property. The Best Creative Award, the Best Social Impact Award, and the Best Artificial Intelligence Award were announced, which brought the Competition to a successful conclusion.
The main venue for this year's SISC was held at the Global Innovation Exchange (GIX) in Bellevue, WA. Chen Chao, President of Seattle Entrepreneurship Club (SEC), host of the Competition, delivered a speech, “The Competition has been successfully held for several years and has now become a famous brand of SEC. The winning teams in previous years have achieved excellent results in many fields. Some have been acquired by well-known large companies; some have obtained investment and are getting better and better. I hope that we can also select and cultivate several new stars from this year's participating teams, which can arise in the business circle.” Vivian Guo, the representative of GIX, said, “GIX, as a joint project between Tsinghua University and the University of Washington, is the education base of Tsinghua University in North America, and is committed to the development of innovative education and Sino-US science and technology education exchanges. For the first time, GIX collaborated with SEC to host this Competition. We hope to discuss innovative education with industry insiders and contribute to the cultivation and training of entrepreneurial talents.”
The theme of this year’s competition was "Better life, Better World." Around this theme, the participating teams showed their products one by one. These products were based on the latest technology, such as artificial intelligence, cloud technology, big data, etc. The participating teams struggled to solve the difficult technological hurdles through new innovative, research and development, which the judges and the audience found refreshing. The speakers elaborated on entrepreneurial ideas, business models, and marketing. The speaker’s passionate speech was well received by audience.
The judges' comments highlighted this year’s competition. "Every entrepreneur's passion in the stage is impressive," "The team is a diverse team with an international perspective." The four main factors considered by the judges are substantial market prospects, core technologies, capable teams, and competitive products. These are also the selection criteria for the judges of this Competition. After voting, the judges finally agreed to select AIDA, WISER, and Simple Intelligence as the top three in this Competition.
AIDA topped the list with factors such as huge market prospects, core technology, and social influence. Speaker Introduce that AIDA is a HIPAA-compliant, SaaS health care platform that allows suppliers to address overdue hospitalization and readmissions. The problem of overdue hospitalization has cost the United States nearly $30 billion a year. AIDA hopes to depict patient care through big data, combine data from multiple types of suppliers, provide valuable care guidelines, and improve patient care. According to the founder, AIDA has received good feedback from customers such as UW Medicine.
WISER won the second prize because of its extensive market prospect and keen-witted and capable team. Wiser is an AI-driven knowledge platform that provides investors with reliable domain analysis and competitive insights. Based on the most advanced natural language processing, machine learning, knowledge maps, and artificial intelligence algorithms, the platform focuses on the depth analysis of comprehensive, unstructured, and fragmented industry data to unlock the most valuable investment information. WISER's team members come from senior machine learning algorithms specialists, software engineers, and well-known NLP specialists at leading scientific institutions in the world, such as Amazon, Microsoft, Thomson Reuters, Airbnb, and the head of United Nations projects. When Huina Mao, the founder, introduced the market prospects of WISER, she said that “According to the IDC report, the market value of big data and business analytics is estimated to be about $260 billion by 2022, especially in the financial sector. WISER has already cooperated with a hedge fund and will enter the product realization stage as soon as possible. The profit is just around the corner.”
The third prize winner is Simple Intelligence, which is an intellectual property search engine using Deep Learning technology to protect and create intellectual property such as trademarks and designs in different jurisdictions and identify conflicting trademarks. According to the speaker, Simple Intelligence currently has an average monthly profit of more than $10,000 and is expected to reach a profit of $300,000 in the next year.
After the three awards were announced, WISER, Genemod, Rivetz, and Simple Intelligence received the best creative award, the best social influence award, the best blockchain award, and the best artificial intelligence award, respectively.
The Seattle Innovation Startup Competition is an assessment and recognition of entrepreneurs, a driving force for the advancement of entrepreneurship, and a guiding lighthouse. Although this year’s contest was closed, the entrepreneurs continued to learn, grow, and change after the contest. We look forward to more outstanding entrepreneurial works coming out next year.