Penn’s new startup accelerator class is all about health IT

Is the next big health IT startup percolating at Penn?
Penn just announced the second class of startups in its National Science Foundation-backed I-Corps accelerator and it heavily skews toward health IT, much like its first class. (We bet that the folks aiming to make Philly a health IT hub are happy to hear that.) There’s a company that’s building, er, Uber for CPR, a concussion-detection strip and a device that aims to reduce counterfeit medication.
The majority of the companies are based off technology developed by Penn faculty. All are very early-stage. The six-week program aims to bring the ideas closer to launch. Each team gets up to $2,600.
PricewaterhouseCoopers is also sponsoring three workshops and a demo day.
The accelerator is one of Penn’s efforts to instill an entrepreneurial culture throughout the university and produce more spinout startups. Two Penn schools have historically been strong in that department: its medical school and its business school, Wharton. But Penn has been trying to get other schools, like its engineering school, to catch the founder bug, too.
You can see that play out when you look at the breakdown of the students and faculty who participated in I-Corps’ first and second class. The first class was largely students and faculty from the medical and business schools, according to Penn’s Laurie Actman, but this time around, the engineering school also came out strong. Penn worked to get more engineering school students and faculty members involved, Actman said.
See a list of teams below, with unedited descriptions supplied by Penn.

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AerO2Max: Technology for athletes that want actionable information on their physiological to optimize their training benefit and drive decisions about type and intensity of workout.
Amsterdam Fluidics: Process to easily transport and deliver medicinal drugs to patients all across the world enables through a process that quickly and easily encapsulates and delivers drugs.
Augmented Lab: Wearable augmented reality technology for management and execution of wet experimental protocols.
Cobi the Bot: Device that socially engages office workers in the same location or remotely. Its first version senses his environment and sends playful messages on Slack.
CPR Connect: Device that connects bystander CPR-certified individuals with at-risk victims for cardiac arrest to reduce emergency response times, and improve patient outcomes.
Dyeagnosers: Device that is a simple and inexpensive glow-in-the-dark concussion detection strip containing a brittle tube that changes color when undergoing forces exceeding 50 G’s.
InnoMix: Technology that facilitates teams through a multi-faceted, matrix driven algorithm that pairs individuals based on needs, skills, start-up phase and personality traits.
Microrobots for Drug Delivery: Robots functionalized to run microscale experiments including transporting and delivering drugs directly to cells and taking precise biological measurements .
PolyAurum: Technology that enables proprietary gold nanoparticles are taken into the tumor cells where they enhance radiotherapy and are then biodegraded and excreted from the body.
SafeStamp: Device that reduces counterfeit medication globally by using nano-markers providing peace of mind to patients and product protection to drug manufacturers
Smart Stator: Device that is a high-performance motor driver to push motors past their present limits while increasing efficiency, lowering noise, reducing vibrations, heightening precision, and improving control.
Smartlift: Technology that provides real time and reviewable metrics to athletes completing barbell based movements via an activity tracking sensor integrated into connected barbell collars.
TechTalk: Technology that serves as a peer-to-peer learning platform that provides use- generated content to teach technology to elders thereby improving their quality of life.