DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH

a DIAMOND by Miriam Antony and Keertana Senthilkumar in the

ROUGH

Seniors Phillip Pan and Mia Yang develop innovative BACVision technology to make roads safer

MONTHS of brainstorming and research. Late nights reviewing proposals and perfecting presentations. It all accumulated to one submission. A winning submission.

GETTING STARTED

In the 2019 Diamond Challenge, seniors Philip Pan and Mia Yang won over $13,000 in prize money, and more importantly, they gained business experience. Their company, BACVision, measures blood alcohol content (BAC) through ocular metrics, or tracking eye movement and pupil dilation through video clips of a person’s face.

“Mia and I originally decided to create our product because we wanted to use our technical skills from TJ to create something in real life with tangible impacts on our community,” Pan said.

Sophomore year, both Pan and Yang participated in Launch X, an online course from MIT that educates young entrepreneurs. The pair met and discussed ideas for a company over the summer.

“We were starting to go out and and noticing things about how dangerous the roads could be, and specifically we pinpointed drunk driving as a hazard that affects a lot of people,” Yang said.

CREATING A COMPANY

One of the most intensive parts of the project was the background research.

“It’s hard to innovate in an industry that hasn’t really seen any innovation for a significant amount of time, so researching the tech and science behind our product definitely took a lot of time,” Pan said.

They came up with a way to measure pupillary light reflex, the tendency of pupils to dilate once a person consumes alcohol. They also used a method already used by law enforcement, horizontal gaze nystagmus, to

“We combined our strengths to come up with the business and improve.”

measure minute vibrations in a person’s eye after alcohol consumption.

“What we’re looking to do is correlate varying levels of these two metrics to specific blood alcohol content models in the future,” Pan said.

The two used their expertise in different areas of the product design and technical fields.

“We combined our strengths to come up with the business and improve,” Yang said.

FEATURED COMPETITIONS

LEFT: Seniors Phillip Pan and Mia Yang were awarded 1st Place in the Diamond Challenge 2019, an entrepreneurial competition which was held at the University of Delware. “It’s been a really great life experience for business and pitching. It’s hard to learn about it through lectures, you really have to go out and try it,” Yang said. Photo courtesy of Stephen M. Berry. RIGHT: Pan and Yang stand in front of the Conrad Challenge backdrop. The pair submitted their product, BACVision, to multiple competitions, including the Conrad Challenge, during their junior year. Photo courtesy of Motoko Schimizu. Bottom: Pan and Yang stand in front of the NextGen Summit, which they were invited to after winning the Diamond Challenge. The Summit was a global summit held for entrepreneurs in June 2019 in New York City. Photo courtesy of Motoko Schimizu.

MANY WILL ENTER, FEW WILL WIN

Then came the daunting part: applying for challenges. Pan and Yang applied to the Conrad Challenge, the Paradigm Challenge, and the Blue Ocean Challenge, among others. Each competition had unique requirements.

“Competitions each have a niche focus on a specific aspect of entrepreneurship. All of them want to train specific aspects or qualities of high school entrepreneurs,” Pan said.

With their victory in the Diamond Challenge, the seniors are not planning to leave their progress behind. Both partners are interested in studying business in college, and plan to expand BACVision.

“We’re already a registered LLC in Virginia and we’re pursuing a software patent right now. We’re definitely interested in pursuing this idea further,” Yang said. “We’ll see where it goes.” The Conrad Challenge is all about innovation in the STEM field. Charles “Pete” Conrad was first an Apollo 12 astronaut, then a passionate entrepreneur. His wife Nancy continues his legacy by aiding the next generation of entrepreneurs through this contest. Applicants develop solutions in one or more of the seven STEM-related categories to participate in the three-round challenge.

With Project Paradigm, the main goal is to encourage creativity, collaboration and help others in the process. The categories (home fires, waste reduction, personal health, food security, and biodiversity) promote solving real-life issues. Participants can win up to $100,000 for any idea, from mobile apps to community events. The Project Paradigm foundation and the Red Cross collaborate to administer this challenge every two years.

Similar to the Conrad Challenge, the Diamond Challenge has three rounds: the submission round, the pitching round, and the semifinal round. These rounds end with a three-day global summit, that takes place at the University of Delaware in April. The Paul and Melinda McConnell Youth Entrepreneurship Initiative runs the challenge to inspire the next generation of business leaders. It offers prize packages up to $13,000 so participants can expand their businesses.