Jaclyn Hingre
Jaclyn Hingre ’19, a mechanical engineering student in the College of Engineering and Computer Science, was selected for the highly competitive Values & Ventures Business Plan Competition, to be held April 5-6 at TCU, Fort Worth, Texas. Hingre is the CEO of Halo, a personal safety device developed through the Invent@SU program.
Hingre ’19 and Annabelle Lincoln ’20 won second place and $3,000 with Halo—a discreet and portable emergency alert system designed for students who need help on or near a college campus. Halo does not require a cellphone or internet service, using radio frequencies and small wearable transmitters to alert public safety in an emergency.
“The TCU Values & Ventures Business Plan Competition is an elite event and we are proud that Jackie will be representing Syracuse’s entrepreneurship community,” says John Torrens. “Opportunities like this are extremely valuable for our student entrepreneurs. They expose them to other like-minded students and the faculty that mentors them in a fun, competitive way.” Torrens is deputy department chair, Entrepreneurship and Emerging Enterprises; program manager, M.S. in Entrepreneurship and Entrepreneurship@Syracuse; and professor of entrepreneurial practice in the Whitman School of Management. Whitman sponsors Syracuse University’s participation in the TCU Values & Ventures Business Plan Competition.
“Being able to represent Syracuse University in TCU’s Richards Barrentine Values and Ventures Competition is an opportunity that I’m really looking forward to,” says Hingre. “I’m thankful to the Whitman faculty for seeing the potential in HALO and allowing me to be able to participate in such an incredible event.”
“This year we had a record amount of applications,” says Matt Smilor, director of the Values and Ventures Program, Neeley Institute for Entrepreneurship & Innovation, Texas Christian University. Each spring, TCU invites students from around the world to pitch ideas for conscious capitalism ventures that make a profit while also solving a problem. Winners take cash prizes to help make their ideas come true, including $40,000 for the grand prize.
The competition will be April 5 and 6, 2019, concluding with the Bolin Innovation Forum featuring Jesse Itsler, an awards ceremony and reception for all participating students and faculty. Itsler, a former rapper on MTV, is the author of the New York Times bestseller, “Living with a Seal,” and cofounded Marquis Jet, the world’s largest private jet card company, which he and his partner sold to Berkshire Hathaway/NetJets. Itsler then partnered with Zico coconut water, which he and his partner sold to The Coca-Cola Company.
