Overview
Semi-finals in GWU New Venture Competition for IoT healthcare hygiene monitoring. Led multidisciplinary team from concept to working prototype using I-Corps customer discovery.
Problem
Hand hygiene compliance prevents hospital infections. Traditional monitoring: manual, inconsistent, no real-time data. Needed to balance administrator metrics, frontline workflows, technical integration, and investor validation.
Solution
I-Corps customer discovery across healthcare stakeholders. Built end-to-end IoT prototype (device → cloud → dashboards) with motion/temperature sensing. SOLIDWORKS hardware design, C++ data processing, real-time compliance metrics.
Impact
- Semi-finals: GWU New Venture Competition (Health & Life Sciences)
- Product-market fit: Validated through I-Corps methodology
- Working prototype: End-to-end IoT architecture
- 3 competitions: Stakeholder synthesis across healthcare, engineering, investor perspectives
Impact & Learnings
Entrepreneurship Impact:
- Validated business opportunity through rigorous customer discovery
- Demonstrated ability to balance technical execution with business development
- Built credibility with external judges and healthcare stakeholders
- Created foundation for potential commercialization post-graduation
Product Management Skills:
- Customer discovery (I-Corps): Systematic validation vs. assumption-based development
- Stakeholder synthesis: Balanced competing priorities across healthcare ecosystem
- Iterative development: 3 competitions enabled rapid product strategy refinement
- Technical + business balance: Maintained product vision while coordinating diverse workstreams
Team Leadership Learnings:
- Clear role definition prevents scope creep and conflict
- Product vision keeps team aligned during technical challenges
- External validation (competitions) provides forcing functions for progress
- Cross-functional coordination requires continuous communication
Key Capabilities Demonstrated:
- Zero-to-one product development (problem validation → prototype → business model)
- Customer discovery and product-market fit validation
- Multidisciplinary team leadership
- Competitive validation (external judges, prize competitions)
- Technical execution (IoT, embedded systems, data analytics)
