LavaLab hosts ‘Demo Night’ showcase

LavaLab, a student-run entrepreneurial incubator, hosted a Demo Night showcase on Tuesday, at which undergraduate teams presented final product demonstrations to peers, investors and program judges.

Earlier in the semester at LavaLab’s Pitch Night, teams delivered initial product ideas with each presentation including a problem assessment, business and marketing plan, competition analysis, product conceptualization and audience feedback. On Tuesday night, the teams revealed their second installments, after utilizing feedback from Pitch Night and developing working models.

LavaLab President Alex Zhang and Austin Spiegel, director of external relations for LavaLab helped plan and coordinate the event.

“This is my first time ever leading anything at this scale, so I was definitely nervous. I have fallen in love with this group of people, and the organization’s mission. It’s been a blast,” Zhang said.

The organization partnered with Digital LA, Cross Campus, User Experience Professionals Association of Los Angeles, Los Angeles Venture Association and Blackstone LaunchPad to bring industry professionals to campus for the event. Silicon Beach LA, USC Marshall Busines Student Government and the Undergraduate Student Government also co-sponsored the event.

One of the groups was Hexcare, an application that gathers health data from wearable devices such as Fitbit or Jawbone and aggregates the information in a user-friendly program.

“Building this product been a great experience. The stuff we are working on is unlike other apps in LavaLab because we aren’t just improving an existing program’s design. We are building a completely new platform that could impact the healthcare industry,” said team member Alex Wormuth, a senior computer science major.

The Hexcare group met with doctors and other medical professionals at USC’s Keck School of Medicine to gather feedback about their product. Team members included Wormuth, Bianca Nasser, a senior majoring in communication, Jordan Furlong, a junior majoring in business administration, and Malvika Nagpal, a junior majoring in computer science and business administration.

“We all wanted to get involved in the health industry and focus on a project that could genuinely help people,” Furlong said.

Another group that presented at the Demo Night event was cheK, a task management application that features a visually appealing display system and unique group sharing capabilities. Group members included Lea Moret, a sophomore majoring in computer science and business administration, Alex Ogorek, a junior majoring in computer science (games), Charmaine Asril Lee, a sophomore majoring in business administration and media arts and practice, Anthony Neyer, a senior majoring in communication, and Alex Yang, a sophomore majoring in business administration.

“We’ve been meeting twice a week since the start of the semester, and it has really brought us together. We really see ourselves as a cohesive team, even though we had never met before this project began,” Yang said.

“Getting the website together and getting the application online was a high point for me this semester. It was exciting to see that we were making progress,” said Ogorek, who led the coding of the application and the prototype’s website.

Going into next semester, LavaLab hopes to foster more of community within the organization by adding retreats and other programming to the organization’s calendar.