About the SECON Pitch Competition

We are excited to invite you to pitch at the SECON Pitch Competition hosted by Harvard Business School and Harvard Kennedy School. 
The SECON Pitch Competition offers you an incredible opportunity to be exposed to investors, mentors, collaborators, customers, and the Harvard community. Five finalists will be selected to pitch to a panel of expert judges, and the winner will receive up to $5,000. The competition will be held on Sunday, March 5th.  
The competition is designed for early ideas and ventures tackling social and/or environmental issues. Any type of corporate structure (nonprofit, for-profit, B Corps, etc.) is welcome to apply to the competition. 
Application Open: January 15th at 9am ET
Application Close: February 5th at 5pm ET February 10th at 11:59pm ET
Finalist Decisions Emailed: February 28th by 5pm ET
The Competition Day: March 5th  at 3:00-4:00pm ET
APPLICATIONS CLOSED

PITCH DAY JUDGES

Ramesh Raskar

Ramesh Raskar

Associate Professor at MIT Media Lab

Ramesh Raskar is an Associate Professor at MIT Media Lab and directs the Camera Culture research group. His focus is on Machine Learning and Imaging for health and sustainability. They span research in physical (e.g., sensors, health-tech), digital (e.g., automated and privacy-aware machine learning) and global (e.g., geomaps, autonomous mobility) domains.

At MIT, his co-inventions include camera to see around corners, femto-photography, automated machine learning (auto-ML), private ML (split-learning), low-cost eye care devices (Netra,Catra, EyeSelfie), a novel CAT-Scan machine, motion capture (Prakash), long distance barcodes (Bokode), 3D interaction displays (BiDi screen),  new theoretical models to augment light fields (ALF) to represent wave phenomena and algebraic rank constraints for 3D displays(HR3D).

In his recent role at Facebook, he launched and led innovation teams in Digital Health, Health-tech, Satellite Imaging, TV and Bluetooth bandwidth for Connectivity, VR/AR and ‘Emerging Worlds’ initiative for FB.

Before MIT, he co-invented techniques for AR, Computational Photography, Shader Lamps (projector-AR), composite RFID (RFIG), multi-flash non-photorealistic camera for depth edge detection, quadric transfer methods for multi-projector curved displays.

He received the Lemelson Award 2016 and ACM SIGGRAPH Achievement Award 2017, Technology Review TR100 award 2004 (which recognizes top young innovators under the age of 35), Global Indus Technovator Award (top 20 Indian technology innovators worldwide) 2003, Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship award 2009 and Darpa Young Faculty award 2010. Other awards include Marr Prize honorable mention 2009, LAUNCH Health Innovation Award, presented by NASA, USAID, US State Dept+ NIKE, 2010, Vodafone Wireless Innovation Award (first place) 2011.

His work has appeared in NYTimes, CNN, BBC, NewScientist, TechnologyReview and several technology news websites.

His invited and keynote talks include TED, Wired, TEDMED, Darpa Wait What, MIT Technology Review, Google SolveForX and several TEDx venues.

His co-authored books include Spatial Augmented Reality,  Computational Photography, and 3D Imaging (under preparation).

He has worked on special research projects at Google [X], Facebook, Apple and co-founded/advised several startups. He launched REDX.io, a platform for young innovators to explore AI-for-Impact. He frequently consults for dynamic organizations to conduct ‘SpotProbing’ exercises to spot opportunities and probe solutions.

He holds 90+ US patents.

Personal webpage http://www.media.mit.edu/~raskar

Specialties: Health-tech, Digital health, Computer Vision, Machine Learning, Imaging, Optics, Displays, Sensors, Medical Imaging, RFID, Projector, VR-AR, Computation Photography, HCI, Tech-Transfer, Ventures, Startups

Macauley Kenney

Macauley Kenney

Entrepreneur in Residence and a lecturer at MIT Sloan and MIT D-Lab.

Macauley Kenney is an Entrepreneur in Residence and a lecturer at MIT Sloan and MIT D-Lab.

Macauley is an executive leader at SurgiBox, a medical device venture creating novel surgical technologies. At SurgiBox, she oversaw the launch of the first ultraportable operating room, taking the product through the design for manufacturing process and into use on the battlefield in Ukraine. Macauley also served as the PI on a $2.5M SBIR P2 with US Air Force Special Operations Command, and as company liaison for DOD engagements.

She is passionate about human-centered design and increasing the success of impact-based ventures, particularly in hardware. Macauley teaches manufacturing technologies, with a focus on adaptation within low-resource settings, at MIT’s D-Lab. She is also the author of two patents on OR technology.

Prior to this she was an early joiner at a rapidly expanding consulting startup in Bogota, growing the company 4x in two years and overseeing the expansion into three new country offices: Kenya, Peru, and Morocco. A serial entrepreneur, Macauley has specialized in scaling organizations in emerging markets, and has led operational systems for ventures in the U.S., Rwanda, and Uganda. Additionally, she has studied early founding team dynamics and their impact on growth strategies. Her research has been featured in multiples news outlets, including Forbes and Engineering for Change.

Macauley is an accomplished public speaker, winning the MIT Can Talk competition while at university, and the North American Present Around the World Competition. She frequently serves as a competition judge, and coaches public speaking with an emphasis on stage presence and narrative building.

Macauley holds an MS in Technology and Policy from MIT, a Sustainability Certificate from MIT Sloan, and a BS in Biomedical Engineering from WPI. Outside of her work as an EIR she serves on the Council of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, an international professional engineering society.

Rym Baouendi

Rym Baouendi

Senior Advisor at Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship at MIT

Rym Baouendi passionate about using her expertise in sustainability, urban planning, and innovation to unlock sustainable and inclusive growth opportunities in emerging markets. She brings over two decades of international experience working with professional firms, startups, governments, academia, and not for profit organizations developing high-impact projects of unique entrepreneurial and innovative excellence.

Over the years she has worked to promote green buildings and sustainable cities globally, through policy advocacy, masterplanning, and design. She advised serval leading organizations including the US National Parks Services, the Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council, the World Green Building Council, Nokia, Abu Dhabi Louvre, Masdar, and BMCE bank in Morocco.

Rym also played an active role in building the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Tunisia. She has also contributed to the wider innovation agenda in Africa, the Middle, and emerging markets. She co-founded Cogite, Tunisia’s first co-working space, which Forbes named as one of the “10 best co-working spaces on Earth”. She is a founding board member of Endeavor Tunisia and has spearheaded the development of BIAT Foundation’s entrepreneurship support programs in Tunisia. She also mentors startups at renowned incubators and accelerators such as the Harvard iLab, BWM Respond, and Katapult.

Rym currently serves as a Senior Advisor at the Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship at MIT and as a Climate Advisor with pan-African private equity and venture capital firms AfricInvest.

Rym holds a Masters in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School in Cambridge, MA, USA, a Masters degree in Building Engineering from Concordia University in Montreal, Canada, a Civil Engineering and Urban Planning degree from INSA de Lyon in France, and a diploma in Initial Studies in Architecture from the School of Architecture of Lyon. She is also THNK fellow and a BMW Responsible Leader.

Rebecca Xiong

Rebecca Xiong

Managing Director, Programs and Engagement Harvard Innovation Lab

Rebecca Xiong is the Managing Director, Programs and Engagement. She spearheads a strategic portfolio of programming and resources for the Harvard Innovation Labs’ community of student and alumni innovators across industry sectors, including health and life sciences; social impact; consumer products and services; business-to-business (B2B) technology.

Becca brings to the Harvard Innovation Labs two decades of experience in the MIT startup ecosystem. She previously served as the program director of MIT Startup Exchange, which promotes collaboration and partnerships between 2000 MIT-connected startups and industry. Prior to that, Becca co-founded two startups: social analytics and marketing startup SocMetrics, and Going.com, an events social network that grew to one million members and was acquired by AOL. Xiong has also held positions at DataPower (acquired by IBM) and Akamai Technologies.

Becca received a PhD in Computer Science from MIT, and did her thesis research at the MIT Media Lab. Becca has been an active member of her community including president of the MIT Club of Boston (the largest alumni club serving 17,000 area alumni) and lead organizer of Cambridge Parent Summit.

Finalists

DetoXyFi

DetoXyFi

We build next generation drinking water filters that are highly effective, affordable, and efficient for use by individuals displaced by disasters.

Jane

Jane

We are bringing the rigor of financial accounting to the carbon world. We’re building a carbon reporting platform for real estate that (1) streamlines data ingestion in real-time, (2) offers traceable and auditable data entry, (3) produces reports that meet the most stringent new regulations and standards, and (4) runs checks-and-balances to ensure results are auditable (e.g. by any Big Four accounting firm). These features are table-stakes for any credible financial accounting software but are so far sorely missing in the carbon world. We believe that there needs to be an Oracle for carbon reporting in real estate.

Raaji Pads

Raaji Pads

Aurat Raaji is a social enterprise based out of Pakistan. At Aurat Raaj [18], our mission is to educate and empower girls on reproductive health using technology. Two of our award-winning [19] products are a chatbot called Raaji [20] that educates adolescents on menstrual education in English & Urdu and a line of sustainable reusable menstrual pads designed by the ingenuity of rural women artisans. We are a youth-led, girl-first, inclusive & diverse team of Pakistanis. Our work has received press from Financial Times, The Guardian, Tech for Good Magazine, Geo TV, ITU, BBC Urdu [21] and won awards from MIT solve, BMW, Roddenberry Foundation, Vodafone. Through our different workshops and programs we have directly impacted the lives of over a million women and girls in low income settlements and rural areas of Pakistan.

Reentry Care

Reentry Care

Reentry Care is a tech-enabled platform to connect individuals leaving incarceration with community-based primary care, behavioral health, and social services to save lives, maximize successful reentry, and reduce recidivism. Returning citizens have high rates of chronic medical, mental health, and substance use disorders but receive little to no support from correctional facilities or parole/probation officers in navigating care in the community. Our solution consists of intensive case management, a data science algorithm to match returning citizens to the right medical and social resources, and a support network of peers.

DynaCare

DynaCare

DynaCare is a modernized web platform for home health care providers and agencies. The home-based care market is growing in popularity as the US population ages rapidly and tech solutions improve the quality of care able to be delivered at home. Unfortunately, much of the technology available to care providers in this market is antiquated and not keeping pace with the adoption of home care. Dynacre will modernize the software in this industry, starting with connectivity solutions between the numerous sites and tools that agencies rely on for patient and employee data. Dynacare will start by powering connectivity between Medicare and Medicaid websites to third-party vendor sites and tools unlocking efficiency for critical and frequently completed operational processes that are time consuming and manual for agencies to complete. We will begin by automating payments processes between Medicaid and Medicare websites, and third-party payroll vendors – by first automating payroll processes, we can then capture various parts of the operational value chain, ultimately becoming a centralized operational platform for home health agencies.

March 4-5, 2023

Harvard Business School, Harvard Kennedy School