Students from the University of Texas At Arlington College of Business recently demonstrated their ingenuity and entrepreneurship at UTA’s “Shark Tank”, just before a presentation from “Shark Tank” entrepreneur Daymond John, as part of the Maverick Speakers Series.
The student event was based upon ABC’s reality TV show “Shark Tank”, which gives hopeful entrepreneurs the opportunity to present their business ideas to a panel of investors- including Daymond John or Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban among others- who decide whether or not to invest in the business. The UTA Shark Tank, which was held at the StartUp Lounge at Campus Center, allowed student entrepreneurs the same opportunity.
Student presentations included a wide variety of inventions and businesses, serving a diverse set of fields such as safety, currency exchange and testing of aerospace equipment.
Several of the inventions proposed included a personal inspiration, such as Matt Harding, who witnessed a friend’s death while serving in the Marine Corps, and hoped to invent something to prevent similar deaths. Harding’s company, SafeTac Mag, aims to create safe ammunition magazines to avoid any confusion between blank fire and live ammunitions during training.
Other inventions included Alisha Hamid’s technology, Edloc, which would help maintain student safety through biometric scanners outside each classroom, in addition to classroom cameras which could be activated during an emergency. Another presentation proposed a system of food delivery that would simultaneously provide data analytics to restaurants.
The presentations were not a competition, although judges were present at the event to evaluate and offer feedback for each student.