Written by: Lara Papasian
Innovate@UCLA’s Young Tech Professionals program helps students develop lifelong professional skills while developing a product to address a social impact problem. In this quarter-long program student teams are assigned industry coaches to guide them through the process of designing a product, developing a business plan, constructing a pitch, and everything in between. Each week, Innovate brings in guest lecturers to share their expert perspective on a specific topic, providing additional insight and ideas to the teams.
The Spring 2024 YTP bootcamp culminated in a demo day where teams pitched their final business plan and prototypes to a selection of esteemed judges. Demo day took place at the James West Alumni Center at UCLA on Friday Jun 7th. These inspirational presentations and ideas would certainly not have been possible without the course instructors, Jim Davis, UCLA Vice Provost Emeritus and Davida Johnson, Executive Director of UCLA OARC.
This year’s program consisted of 6 teams providing smart solutions to societal issues by leveraging Sustainability, CivicTech, and HealthTech. A list of team names, members, coaches, and the issue they addressed can be found below.
- Closet Next Door – Fast Fashion(Sustainability)
- Jeristella Go, Shuyan Gao, Jackson Edward, Lori Louie, Yanisa Kee, Katrina Iguban
- JobSpark – Community Information Services (CivicTech)
- Michael Bunte, Simone Long, Akash Chauhan, Christopher Seybold, Tyler Lin, Sofia Gavura
- Waste Watchers – Food Waste (Sustainability)
- Kat Limqueco, Darin Marlow, Jiaxin Luo, Lara Papasian, Alexis Packer, Kali Olmsted
- Coaches: Kenny Totrakarn, Director of Operational Resilience & Compliance for FOX, Leslie Wong, Information Security Advisor, Southern California Edison (SCE), Glen Lewis (Drop-in-Coach), Senior Program manager, KAI Partners
- FitPal – Wellness through Physical Activity (HealthTech)
- Theo Teske, Mandy Vien, Edmund Yau, Isabella Lee, Anthoney Xie
- Coach: David Soto, Senior Engineer, Advisor, Enterprise Network Operations at Southern California Edison (SCE)
- Mynd – Wellness through Stress Management (HealthTech)
- Katya Khlystova, Steve Ding, Rabiga Arip, Sky Wang, Angela Marie Guevarra, Hugo Onghai
- Coaches: Greg Geary, CIO, Whittier Trust Company, Howard Miller, CIO, UCLA Anderson School of Management
- CommUniSpace – Wellness through Physical Spaces (HealthTech)
- Jim Liu, Proud Puangmaha, Steven Bash, Tess Flinchbaugh, Ciana Machi, Mahsa Ileslamlou
- Coaches: Scott Little, Data Scientist – EIP AC Council, Adjunct Professor, Southern California Edison, Cal Poly Pomona, Walter Hsieh, IT Arch (Systems Designs), Sr Advisor at Southern California Edison (SCE)
We would like to thank all of our wonderful guest lecturers, listed below, for taking the time to share your expertise with our students.
- Charles Sims, Co-founder of Funder.ai – How to Create a Business Model
- Jason Yeh, Founder of Adamant Ventures – How to Pitch to Investors
- Peter Loo, Acting CIO at LA County – Social Innovation
- Simon Boyce-Maynard, Engineering Manager at Google – Design Thinking
- Theresa Miller, CIO and SVP at Lionsgate Entertainment – Communications, Teamwork, and Conflict Resolution
- Parag Gondhalekar, Co-founder and Chief AI Officer at InnerSights – Creating Impactful AI Applications
- Thomas Phelps, Vice President of Corporate Strategy & CIO at Laserfiche – AI Governance – Cloud, Privacy, Security Risks and Controls
- Rose Rocchio, Director of the Mobile, Web Strategy and Accessibility at UCLA OARC – No Code Mobile App Development
- Kevin Gray, CIO, City of Burbank – Agile Project Management
- Lauren Cullen, UI/UX Designer for the Mobile Data Research at UCLA OARC – UI/UX Design and Accessibility
On Demo Day students pitched their product to a group of six judges who evaluated the teams on a variety of factors. The names and company affiliations of each judge is also listed below.
- Bonny Bentzin, Deputy Chief Sustainability Officer, UCLA
- Robert Heinemeier, Managing Partner, Maximon Behavioral Health
- Pamela Leo, Assistant Deputy, Economic and Community Development, LA County
- Greg Moore, CIO, KB Home
- Parag Gondhalekar, Chief AI Officer, The InnerSights
- Beth Apillanes, Manager, Service Delivery, Strategy & Operations (Enterprise Technology), Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
Judges selected winners for three categories of awards. FitPal received the award for “Most Commercially Viable” product. The “Most Innovative” award was given to the WasteWatchers team. Lastly, the award for “Most Societal Impact” was given to the WasteWatchers team as well.
Having been a part of the Innovate@UCLA Young Tech Professionals program for two years now, I’ve had the privilege of witnessing firsthand the tremendous growth and innovation that this program fosters. I am incredibly thankful to my professors and mentors for guiding me as I explored product management, design, business planning, and so much more. I honed my skills in teamwork, leadership, and communication while designing a product that addresses a social issue I am truly passionate about. Seeing how my team, Waste Watchers, started as a collection of abstract ideas and culminated in an interactive app prototype that the judges truly believed in was an incredibly rewarding experience. The affirming feedback that my team received has encouraged us to continue refining our product with the hope of actually implementing the Waste Watchers App as a solution to reducing food waste on an individual level.
The journey from developing a concept to presenting it on demo day was both challenging and exhilarating. In addition to my experience as a participant, I also felt inspired watching my peers’ pitches on demo day. Everyone was genuinely dedicated to creating impactful solutions for societal issues, and it reaffirmed the value of this program in shaping future tech leaders.
Being a part of such a dynamic environment, where every participant is passionate about making a difference, has been a wonderful experience that I cannot recommend more. It has not only enhanced my professional skills but also deepened my commitment to leveraging technology for social good. Once again, I am so thankful for all of the mentors and guest lecturers that helped make this experience possible.
This program is a wonderful way for our members to connect with the UCLA community while sharing their knowledge and experience with our student body. If you are interested in volunteering as a lecturer, coach, or judge in future quarters, please stay in touch. You may visit our website to learn more about the program. Please email ytp@ucla.edu with any questions about the program or info@innovateucla.org if you are interested in becoming a member. Lastly, feel free to follow our Linkedin page to stay up to date on future cycles of the program. We are always looking for new perspectives and ideas to help our students flourish.