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Tampa Bay Inno Under 25 Lists USF Students with Some Bright Ideas

By Keith Morelli

TAMPA (October 9, 2020) -- Innovation knows no age or background. That much is true based on the list of entrepreneurs named in Tampa Bay Inno’s Under 25 list, ranging in age to seasoned graduate students to a 7-year-old whose idea focused on saving the oceans. Ideas were fresh and creative and some of the honorees are USF students already with reputations as being among Tampa Bay’s rising entrepreneurs. They have connections to the USF Center for Entrepreneurship’s  Daveler program, the Florida Blue Health innovation Challenge and USF’s Student Innovation Incubator programs.

The list, compiled last month, named stand-out entrepreneurs and innovators in the region. Tampa Bay Inno said the sampling of ideas included drug-detecting jewelry, eco-friendly medical devices and a top-secret lemonade recipe.

Here are some with connections to USF, as listed by Tampa Bay Inno:

Nandini Agarwal, a Muma College of Business senior, founded Samagreen in 2019. The company is introducing sustainable and patient-friendly, discreet ostomy bags. During the coronavirus pandemic, she founded Emerging Bulls Consulting, a pro bono initiative to help nonprofits deal with economic disruptions caused by the pandemic. The group recruited 20 students and helped three nonprofits. She was named to the Clinton Global Initiative-University Class of 2020, was part of USF's inaugural Millennium Fellowship Cohort and was named a Frank and Ellen Daveler Entrepreneurship Fellow, a statewide program.

Damola Teniola, a USF student, and co-founder, Rebecca Oyetoro, created LiveEDU a data-driven learning technique designed to enhance health care delivery and help patients and their families with hospital discharge and exit programs. Teniola and Oyetoro won the Judge’s Choice Award at the 2020 Florida Blue Health Innovation Challenge, cosponsored by the USF Center for Entrepreneurship. Teniola, a chemical engineering student at USF, also interns at Medtronic, a publicly traded medical-device company based in Ireland.

Nick Morris, a third-year finance major at the Muma College of Business, launched drvwy in October 2019. It is a mobile parking platform allowing users to rent out their driveways or other private property spaces for customers looking for a hassle-free way to park. He is part of the USF Connect Student Innovation Incubator, was a winning finalist in the Daveler Entrepreneurship Program and was chosen as USF's sole representative for the Governor's Cup Pitch Competition.

Kayla Wilson created an application called Connecting Care to help connect patients with medical social workers. The medical social workers help patients access the community services, along with emotional or psychosocial support. The goal is to reduce hospital re-admissions, specifically chronic heart failure patients. Wilson, a USF master’s degree student studying public health, won second place in the Florida Blue Innovation Challenge.