Four Biomedical Engineering undergraduates from the University of Oklahoma won a prestigious award in the Coulter College Program, a rigorous nationwide engineering design competition. Accompanied by Professor Marc Moore, OU seniors Daniel Cheong, James Elias, Benjamin Seibert, and Osamah Mian flew to Minneapolis to participate in the product innovation and biomedical engineering competition hosted by the Biomedical Engineering Society. This is the first year OU students have competed in the program: “I had no idea what it was until we got there” says Elias. However, the newness of the program and the stiff competition they faced didn’t faze Cheong, Elias, Seibert, and Mian, who won the award for “Best Venture Capital Pitch for Diabetes Disease Management.”
The Coulter College program is a hybrid of a training program and competition that fuses the complexity and innovation of Biomedical Engineering with the ingenuity and nuance of business. Twelve teams from top BME programs across the country were given one of three problems facing doctors and patients: hypertension management, heart valve defect, or diabetes management, and were tasked to invent, design, and market a feasible solution to their assigned problem. Aided by business professionals and doctors, the teams developed their idea over several days and presented their idea in a venture capital pitch setting. Late nights and early mornings were the reality for these high-achieving students as they prepared for the presentation, “It was one giant whirlwind of a weekend,” says Cheong. The OU team competed against top BME schools from across the nation, including Johns Hopkins University, the University of Illinois, the University of Michigan, and the University of Akron.
Given their problem area, diabetes management, Cheong, Elias, Seibert, and Mian began the competition with an idea in mind: an app that could check the glucose levels of a diabetic. The idea morphed into a portable device like a phone case before the team, with help from their business mentors and design professionals, decided on a publicly available testingoption. As the team researched the current products in diabetes management, they discovered the current medical need for this design. One in three Americans are either diabetic or pre-diabetic, and the team knew their design could make a difference in raising awareness: “We can help save people,” says Elias.
As they continued researching their idea, the team met with industry professionals to determine the logistics of pitching, marketing, and developing their product. “At the end of the day, engineering is the first step, and the business and marketing comes next,” says Mian. This business experience, he says, is “very valuable for engineering students to have. Not all schools emphasize it, but OU does.” These business and marketing elements of their design not only helped them win the competition, but have also provided these students with opportunities beyond the program.
Even after the Coulter College Program, Cheong, Elias, Seibert, and Mian are continuing to work on their diabetes management project as their senior capstone. Alongside applying to medical school and making plans for post-graduation, they are working to secure a patent for their design. With help from entrepreneurship professionals, the team is beginning the process of expanding their design into a fully-fledged business.
All four students credit their success in the Coulter College Program to their education at the University of Oklahoma: “We were only capable of [winning this award] because the BME program here is amazing. Having this new program has given us the opportunity to grow up with the program as it grows to the best BME program in the region,” says Mian.
