Seattle-area high school students competed in the finals of the TiE Young Entrepreneur (TYE) Seattle chapter finals competition last week and a team called Soundwave is moving on to TYE’s Global Business Plan Competition next month.
Soundwave created an artificial intelligence-enabled accent softening program for call center agents aimed at increasing customer satisfaction. They won the top prize of $2,750.
Two other groups gained recognition for top business ideas at the competition, held May 23 at Bellevue City Hall, including:
- KEY Beauty: An AI and scanning technology platform for creating accurate makeup shade matches for girls and women of color. (1,250 prize)
- MyPath: An AI-driven college counseling bot providing personalized feedback and detailed application analysis for high school students. ($1,000 prize)
Ten other teams won $250 awards (two in each category) for best teamwork, execution, customer validation, elevator pitch and business model. And three teams won $100 honorable mention prizes.
The finalists were part of the TYE 2023-2024 program, which aims to guide and mentor young entrepreneurs in creating and launching their first real businesses. The Seattle program featured 14 teams and more than 70 young entrepreneurs who presented their ideas in two semifinal tracks.
Soundwave’s members include: Pradyu Kandala (Eastlake High School); Sathvik “Andy” Kurapati (Transition School at UW Robinson Center for Young Scholars); Dhruv Arora (Skyline High School); Vedaant Kulkarni (Eastlake High School); Prithvi Aravind (The Overlake School); and Koshin Sharma (Bellevue High School).
Along with the three top teams, other business ideas from students at Seattle-area schools included a two-sided marketplace for carbon credits; a haptics and LIDAR-enabled camera for the visually impaired; biodegradable bottles; analyzing real-time concussion-related data; and an AI bot for talking to special needs and autistic people and helping them focus.
During the program, TYE mentors support students in ideation, market opportunity assessment, product-market fit validation, and prototype creation. The aim is to give students essential skills and knowledge for creating a viable startup.
“The students in our TYE program are not just entrepreneurs of tomorrow but are also a source of inspiration and energy to us all — entrepreneurs, mentors, judges, instructors, and the entire TiE fraternity,” said Yash Wagh, TYE program chair.
The final competition was judged by a panel of Seattle-area tech executives, including Anoop Gupta, CEO of SeekOut; Joseph Sirosh, CEO of Creators AGI; Aseem Datar, vice president of Next-Gen Computing & AI at Microsoft; and Sabrina Wu, a principal at Madrona Venture Group.
SeekOut CTO Aravind Bala, a TYE instructor and mentor, said he was amazed by the students’ dedication and commitment.
“Despite their busy schedules, they have gone above and beyond my expectations,” Bala said. “Collaborating with new team members, developing innovative ideas, creating demos, and preparing presentations are not only the core activities of this program but also vital skills that will serve them well in their future endeavors.”
Soundwave will represent TYE Seattle at the TYE Global Business Plan Competition in Silicon Valley, June 19-21.
Founded in 2000, TiE Seattle is a chapter of The Indus Entrepreneurs, a global nonprofit with 61 chapters in 14 countries, dedicated to growing and fostering entrepreneurship throughout the world.
