Campus 1871 announced the winners of this year’s three day startup weekend event which took place on April 4-6, 2014 at 1871’s Merchandise Mart headquarters. The event brought together 80 students from 1871 partner universities (IIT, Northwestern, University of Illinois, and University of Chicago) for a free weekend-long event to not only build new startups, but participate in Startup 101 crash courses, keynote speakers, mentorship, pitches, and a grand prize for the winning team.

IIT had the most applicants of any of the four universities. Eighty students applied for 20 positions. The top three teams had at least one student representing IIT.

1st Prize Winner:
Team: Alpacu
Creating a market for the home moving industry

IIT team members: Ge Cao (Design/Institute of Design) and Guillermo de la Puente (ITM/School of Applied Technology).

2nd Prize Winner:
Team: Fizz App
Payment processing using the Fizz app on a smartphone. No more need to wait for a bartender to swipe your card.

IIT team members: Elmar Okanovic (EECE/Armour College of Engineering), Alex Wall (EECE/Armour College of Engineering), and Soobin Kim (Marketing/Stuart School of Business).

3rd Prize Winner:
Team: YOUnify
Creating a platform to help students develop their networks

IIT team member: Carrie Blumenfeld (Design Methods/Institute of Design).

Each member of the top team won a full membership to 1871 for a year, and the members of the second and third teams won a full membership for the summer. They will be encouraged and supported to continue to further their winning ideas.