By Miharu Sugie, News Staff 

Within the time-limit of 48 hours, student innovators created prototypes and business models to compete for a combined prize of $1,000 at InnoWeekend, a competition hosted by the Northeastern Entrepreneurs Club last weekend. Among the seven competing teams, Locktopus was awarded first place and Fit Plus won second, followed by QPrez.

“I think right now is a really exciting time for entrepreneurship at Northeastern,” Max Kilb, junior finance and entrepreneurship major and co-director of InnoWeekend, said. “We have really developed an ecosystem that allows students to really take an idea they came up on a whiteboard or a back of a napkin or envelope, and bring that from its very initial concept stage all the way to the market through events like InnoWeekend.”

And in that ecosystem, students from different backgrounds and colleges within Northeastern worked together last weekend, just as Kilb hoped.

“Engineers are entrepreneurs, art students are entrepreneurs, everybody has the ability to use their entrepreneurial skills to develop something,” Kilb said.

Team Locktopus consisted of Ben Bungert, a middler entrepreneurship and marketing major; Ian McDonald, a graduate student in engineering; Ben Russell, a junior mechanical engineering major; and Felipe Torres, a middler mechanical engineering major. The team and product’s name, Locktopus, came up on Friday night, when the teammates noticed that the expandable bike lock wires that latch onto a bike’s wheels and frame looked like an octopus. The name was received well by the audience and the judges. The judges included Max Kaye, CEO of IDEA; Erica Swallow, a student partner of Rough draft Ventures; Justin Robinson, co-founder of Drizly; and Maddie Simens, an assistant director of Husky Startup Challenge (HSC).

The students, who commute to Northeastern on their bikes, noticed that there has been an ongoing problem with bike theft. In their presentation, they said that as much as 300,000 bikes are stolen per year. In front of the judges, the team presented a bike lock consisting of three bike cuffs attached to cables that secure the saddle and front and back wheels to the bike’s frame. This octopus-like lock no longer requires bikers to carry around bike locks, according to Torres. After locking each individual bike cuff, the biker can then use his or her current u-lock to secure the bike frame.

Before the designated presentation time on Sunday night, the teams were gathered around their laptops, busily finishing their business models and powerpoints in the Curry Student Center’s mezzanine. Finalizing a business plan and creating the product in just 48 hours was a feat, Bungert said.

Torres also noted that brainstorming how to differentiate Locktopus from other locks currently on the market added to the stress during the weekend.

“If anything, an intensive competition like InnoWeekend seems to bring out the best in teams and really pushes them to make quick, logical decisions given the time crunch,” Russell said.

Although there was limited time, McDonald said they also enjoyed listening to speakers like Johnny Cupcakes CEO Johnny Earle.

“Having successful student entrepreneurs throughout the weekend to bounce ideas off was invaluable,” Russell said. “My main takeaway was to just run with your idea.  It’s the process of learning and making connections that can only be done, when you’re actually doing.”

Bungert said that the team participated in InnoWeekend for the experience, but the prize, $500, was a nice surprise. Fit Plus received $300 and QPrez received $200. Fit Plus designed a vending machine that dispense nutritional drinks customized to the specific needs of people at the gym. QPrez presented an online platform similar to Blackboard that students can access with their Northeastern IDs and download files and presentations easily. Afterwards, the judges suggested the team build three variations of their lock so the consumer can choose among a high, medium and low cost Locktopus, Torres said.

Cameron Billings, a middler management information systems and finance major and HSC assistant director, was one of the many students at the competition assisting the teams.

“I think it’s awesome for students to get together even at crazy times to get their projects done, working literally, all day, as a team,” Billings said.

All the competing teams in InnoWeekend are invited to participate in HSC’s boot camps and Demo Day on Nov. 19, said Matt Voska, HSC director and sophomore computer engineering major and entrepreneurship minor.

There, Voska said that students from all majors are welcome to learn the process of starting a business and the top three ventures can receive an award totaling $5,000. An Audience Choice award will also be given out.