Owl Have You Know

Season 1, Episode 19

Ritesh Sheth ’04 joins host Christine Dobbyn to discuss his journey from management consulting to product management and financial analyst, and finally to becoming a yoga teacher and focusing on serving others.

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An application that allows convenience store owners to remotely manage and monitor their businesses from their smartphones took home the grand prize during the 2021 Rice Business Plan Competition (RBPC).

SwiftSku from Auburn University was selected by the judges as the startup with the highest investment potential and is taking home $432,667 in cash and other prizes.

The annual event hosted by the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship and Rice’s Jones Graduate School of Business is the world’s largest and richest student startup competition. This year’s event attracted the highest number of participants ever, with 54 startups vying for over $1.6 million in prizes. The winners were announced virtually this afternoon at the conclusion of the four-day event.

A competitive, high-quality applicant pool led the Rice Alliance to expand this year’s RBPC, offering more student entrepreneurs the opportunity to compete for prizes and receive the quality mentorship, feedback and real-world experience the competition boasts.

Significant prizes this year and the teams that won them include:

• $350,000 GOOSE Capital Investment Grand Prize — SwiftSku, Auburn University
• $100,000 Jon Finger and Finger Interests, David Anderson and the Anderson Family Fund, Greg Novak and Tracy Druce Second-Place Investment Prize — AgZen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
• $50,000 Jon Finger and Finger Interests, David Anderson and the Anderson Family Fund, Greg Novak and Tracy Druce Third-Place Investment Prize — FibreCoat, RWTH Aachen University
• $300,000 The OWLs Investment Prize — AgZen, MIT
• $100,000 Houston Angel Network Investment Prize — AgZen, MIT
• $100,000 TiE Houston Angel Group Investment Prize — FibreCoat, RWTH Aachen University
• $100,000 Artemis Fund Investment Prize — Kit Switch, Stanford University
• $100,000 TMC Innovation Healthcare Investment Prize — ArchGuard, Duke University
• $50,000 Business Angel Minority Association Investment Prize — SwiftSku, Auburn University
• $25,000 Southwest National Pediatric Device Prizes — Blue Comet Medical Solutions, Northwestern University; Neurava, Purdue University
• $50,000 nCourage Investment Group’s Courageous Women Entrepreneurs Investment Prize — Shelly Xu Design (SXD), Harvard University
• $25,000 Urban Capital Network Investment Prize — OYA FEMTECH Apparel, UCLA
• $25,000 Pearland Economic Development Corporation Spirit of Entrepreneurship Prize — SimpL, University of Pittsburgh
• $25,000 RG Advisory Partners’ CFO Consulting Prize — SwiftSku, Auburn University
• $20,000 Johnson & Johnson Innovation | JLABS Life Science Award — LFAnt Medical, McGill University
• $20,000 OFW Law FDA Regulatory Strategy In-Kind Prize — Paldara, Oklahoma State University
• $20,000 Silver Fox Advisors Mentoring In-Kind Prizes — Ai-Ris, Texas A&M University; bruxAway, University of Texas at Austin; Karkinex, Rice University
• $20,000 Baker Botts Legal Service In-Kind Prizes — AgZen, MIT; FibreCoat, RWTH Aachen University; SwiftSku, Auburn University
• $30,000 Polsinelli Energy Tech Innovation In-Kind Award — AgZen, MIT
• $5,000 Eagle Investors Prize — OYA FEMTECH Apparel, UCLA
• $3,500 in total prizes for the Mercury Fund Elevator Pitch Competition — Anthro Energy         , Stanford University; AgZen, MIT; Blue Comet Medical Solutions, Northwestern University; EasyFlo, University of New Mexico; SwiftSku, Auburn University; FibreCoat, RWTH Aachen University
• $3,000 in total prizes for Anbarci Family People’s Choice Awards — AgZen, MIT; OYA FEMTECH Apparel, UCLA; SwiftSku, Auburn University
• $3,000 Palo Alto Software Outstanding LivePitch Prize — LiRA, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

The seven finalists for the grand prize based on the judges’ overall scores were:

SwiftSku, Auburn University — Grand prize and individual prizes worth a total of $432,667.

The grand prize includes:

• $350,000 Investment Prize from Goose Capital.
• Business plan software provided by Palo Alto Software.
• Opportunity to ring the closing bell at the Nasdaq Stock Market in New York.
• $25,000 in-kind CFO Consulting from RG Advisory Partners.
• In-kind legal services from Baker Botts

AgZen, MIT — second place and a total of $538,667 in prizes.

AgZen’s field-tested and patented spray and formulation technology reduces pesticide usage by 50% while maintaining optimal pest control.

FibreCoat, RWTH Aachen University — third place and $157,166 in total prizes.

FibreCoat developed a fiber coating process to economically produce composite fiber; the first product is a basalt fiber with aluminum coating that performs like full aluminum fibers.

Candelytics, Harvard University — fourth place and more than $5,000 in total prizes, including the $5,000 Norton Rose Fulbright Fourth-Place Cash Prize.

Candelytics is a lidar and 3D analytics startup that aims to pioneer the digital infrastructure that will make complex 3D data accessible, intelligent and impactful.

OYA FEMTECH Apparel, UCLA — fifth place and more than $36,000 in total prizes, including the $5,000 EY Fifth-Place Cash Prize.

OYA FEMTECH Apparel is revolutionizing sportswear leggings with fabrics, designs and innovations that support feminine health.

LFAnt Medical, McGill University — sixth place and more than $25,000 in total prizes, including the $5,000 Chevron Technology Ventures Sixth-Place Cash Prize.

LFAnt Medical is a Canadian biotechnology startup dedicated to revolutionizing point-of-care diagnostics for at-home detection of sexually transmitted infections.

SimpL, University of Pittsburgh — seventh place and more than $30,000 in total prizes, including the $5,000 Shell Ventures Seventh-Place Cash Prize.

SimpL is a digital health company that uses computer vision and artificial intelligence to improve outcomes for people with back pain by recommending home exercise programs based on user-specific biomechanics and pain points.

Additionally, Anthro Energy, Stanford University, won the elevator pitch competition and a $1,000 cash prize from Mercury Fund. The top five elevator pitches in each sector were awarded cash prizes.

All competitors also receive:

• Entrepreneur Futures Network (EFN) mentoring
  • EFN mentors offered pre-competition mentoring and advice to each of the teams invited to participate at the 2021 RBPC. They provided advice in areas such as refining a business plan, refining financial models and improving presentation skills.
• Amazon Web Services
  • Amazon Web Services will provide up to $5,000 in service credits for each of the 54 startup teams for 2 years.

For more information about the RBPC, visit www.rbpc.rice.edu.

Based on research by Eleanor Putnam-Farr

• Institutions such as cafeterias grapple with wasted food – regardless of whether the food is pasta, meat, veggies, or anything else. 
• The people least likely to waste cafeteria food are those who frequent a cafeteria more often, and feel confident that they will enjoy their meals.
• Pre-portioned food is aimed at reducing portion size, but may force people to take more than they want of certain items.

Remember pre-COVID dining halls? They were where students convened with friends and caught up on the day’s events until they were eventually kicked out. Often, the food itself was an afterthought. At some time or another, most of the students were guilty of scraping uneaten food into the trash.

Food waste at home and in a store or restaurant setting has been studied closely – and rightly so. As much as 40 percent of the food in the United States is wasted. At a time when more than 10 percent of Americans are food-insecure, reducing food waste by just 15 percent annually could nourish as many as 25 million people. 

But food waste in institutional settings is less well understood. The dynamics are different from those in places where wasted food means a personal financial hit. It’s a complicated process; while no one takes cafeteria food with the intention of scraping it into the trash, they still do it. The question is why.

To explore such waste and how to prevent it, Rice Business Professor Eleanor Putnam-Farr joined a team of researchers – including Tiffany Wiriyaphanich, Jean-Xavir Guinard and Edward S. Sprang of the University of California, Davis, Ghislaine Amsler Challamel of Stanford University, Robert T. Valgenti of Lebanon Valley College, Danielle Sinclair of the University of California, Santa Barbara and Samantha Lubow of the University of California – in a study of half a dozen different schools organized in partnership with the Menus of Change University Research Collaborative. In university cafeterias, they found, food waste is typically driven by portion size, how familiar diners are with their menu options and, less surprisingly, how much they like or don’t like what they’re served.

Altogether, the team studied diners across five California universities and one Pennsylvania college, capturing 818 responses from 296 subjects. The research, which took place during the 2019 spring and fall semesters, scrutinized not only cafeteria food options but subjective issues including diner confidence. In addition, the researchers asked diners their impressions directly. “Diners were intercepted at their dining halls and asked if they wanted to participate in a study about food choices and satisfaction,” the researchers write. “But the objective of investigating food waste behavior was not disclosed.” 

The team collected food waste information using photos – a novel approach that took advantage of the omnipresence of camera phones and improvements in mobile surveys. Students were instructed to take before and after photos of their cafeteria meal plates, all of which measured between 9 to 10 inches. They were also asked to answer questions about how they chose the items on their plates, and then rate their satisfaction with the food and tell why they had chosen not to eat certain items. These photos were then coded with the help of a research support team from Rice Business.

To see the types of food most likely to be snapped up or spurned, researchers divided diners’ food options under investigation into five categories: prepared/mixed including sandwiches, animal protein, grains and starches, fruits and veggies and plant protein such as tofu, meat substitutes or legumes. 

These categories, they found, had little bearing on the amount of wasted food: tofu, sandwiches and canned peaches all had their fans and detractors. Instead, the main factors in wasting or not wasting were confidence in a dish and individual perceptions of taste value. The least wasteful diners were those who were more satisfied with their meals, most confident that they would enjoy the meal ahead of them and dined in an institutional environment more often, compared to their peers. 

In contrast, those who wasted the most went to the cafeteria less often, were less satisfied with the meals they ate there and were less confident they would enjoy the food once they sat down to eat.

Another factor with a major impact: who was serving the food. Having more foods that were pre-plated – think sandwiches or stir-fry ladled out by a cafeteria worker – typically correlated with greater amounts of foods on diners’ plates and more waste. One potential issue with this is that people aren’t sure that they will like the dish, but are forced to take a full serving. This causes them to potentially overserve a dish that they don’t like, while simultaneously taking other items to balance out their meal.

Based on these findings, Putnam-Farr and her team concluded that one of the simplest ways universities can reduce waste is by offering samples of new dishes. Letting people taste something before taking a full serving gives them greater confidence in whether they will like the dish. They also suggest separating out the components of a dish into separate servings, noting that people often left behind the rice that accompanied a main dish, or some of the fruits in a fruit salad.

A further suggestion is considering tweaking portion size while upping taste value, smell and appearance. Granted, cafeteria managers will never be able to control individual taste buds: like with home-cooking, a cafeteria specialty that tastes and smells scrumptious to one person might make her tablemate push her meal listlessly around with a fork. In life and business, we must focus on what we can control. In the cafeteria, even a small serving of good management can go far.

Eleanor Putnam-Farr is an assistant professor of marketing at the Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University. 

To learn more please see: Wiriyaphanich, T.; Guinard, J.X.; Spang, E.; Amsler Challamel, G.; Valgenti, R.T.; Sinclair, D.; Lubow, S.; Putnam-Farr, E. Food Choice and Waste in University Dining Commons—A Menus of Change University Research Collaborative Study. Foods 2021, 10, 577. 

March 5, 2020 — I got a phone call from a Houston-area number. I had been in an anxious headspace all day and struggled to stay focused. As soon as my phone lit up, I jumped in my chair and stepped outside to answer. 

“Hi Nathan!” A cheerful voice greeted me. “This is Jessica from the Admissions Office at Rice Business, and I wanted to let you know that you have been admitted to the full-time MBA program for the fall!”  The news left me stunned.

“Wow…” is all I could say. Feeling emotional, I leaned against the wall of the stairwell.

The road to starting my MBA was often long and lonely. As a first-generation college student and son of a Filipina immigrant and Navy veteran father, I’d focused my life on achieving, getting an education and advancing my career. But by the time I considered an MBA, I was floundering, unsure if my current field, digital marketing, was where I wanted to stay. An MBA, I thought, would help me challenge myself and pivot. 

So when I got the call from Rice Business, I felt I had suddenly lucked into a ticket to re-imagine my life and career. The future never looked brighter.

Then came the rapid transition to “work from home.” New cases of COVID-19 were spreading uncertainty across the country. My visions of Houston MBA life, complete with Thursday night Partios, drinks with classmates and networking events started to fade, as Zoom info sessions started to flood my calendar. My wife, Lauren, and I agonized about upending our lives during a pandemic for what would look like a virtual MBA experience.

Nevertheless, I sent my deposit and confirmed it: I would be attending Rice in the fall.

That first semester was dizzying. Between the workload and the endless string of school-related events, the year felt like a decade. Now, with two terms completed, and with my last term of core classes almost done, I’d like to share some of the lessons I learned from starting an MBA in the middle of a pandemic.

1. It’s time to change our assumptions of being in control.

Once I started business school, I used to tell myself, the path to follow will be clear. I was flat out wrong.

I was overwhelmed by the flood of information, the case studies, the problem sets and struggling to keep up. Many days, I wondered if I’d made a mistake. The difficulty of school mixed with the accomplishments and performance of my peers left me with a deep sense of impostor syndrome. And even with hybrid classes, the severe diminishing of social activity left me feeling isolated and longing for old friends.

To my surprise, though, in the midst of all this uncertainty came new opportunities. I signed up for a program that gave me access to a mentor. Rice Business connected me with a leadership coach. I competed in the first-ever racial justice case competition. And as the months passed, I found numerous other ways to connect and get involved that I’m not sure I would have under “normal” circumstances.

I’d started out assuming I could control what was in front of me, but circumstances forced me to adapt. The truth is that while most of us like to think we’re in control that was never a trustworthy assumption — even before 2020. For those of us who like to control things, the pandemic year was a crash course in accepting that we will never be in full control. 

2. Get comfortable with ambiguity.

Preparing to attend school virtually, I didn’t know what life in Houston was like aside from what other friends shared with me. There was no assurance of what the market would look like for internships, or even what the classroom experience would be like. I had only my current situation — and my opportunity to study at Rice.

That’s not unlike business, I discovered. In case studies for business school, you only have the narrative, the decision at hand, and a series of exhibits of charts and financial statements, leaving you to untangle the knots and start making sense of what’s in front of you. Sometimes the information isn’t perfect, and you’re always wanting more information or wishing you had one specific piece.

Here’s the kicker: you’re not going to get that information. And you still have to make a decision. The “risk” is never zero.

As I’ve gotten involved with the entrepreneurship and innovation space here at Rice and in Houston, I’ve grown to appreciate the mindset of getting familiar with problem spaces, testing assumptions and gathering insights to the best of my ability. 

3. The most important decision is the next one.

The pandemic has definitely altered everyone’s immediate plans. But it’s also reprogrammed my own tendency to be consumed with the long-term future. I know that I have deliverables due next week, a conference to attend to tomorrow. When I get home from studying on campus, I have some catching up to do with my wife as we walk our dog. Whatever happens day by day, I realized, I can only say yes or no, do or do not, and then see where my next decision leads. It’s a hard lesson learned for a somewhat Type-A person. 

Now I’m working on one thing at a time, maintaining my focus, keeping my standards high — and taking that next step. But when I look back, I can already see how far I have come. I can’t wait to see the decisions that lie ahead of me — and where my choices will lead me next. 

A version of this story originally appeared in the Medium.

Three events during this week’s Rice Business Plan Competition (RBPC) — the world’s largest and richest student startup competition — will be livestreamed.

Hosted by the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship and Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business, the RBPC will gather teams from 54 universities and six countries to compete for more than $1.2 million in prizes and investments. The elevator pitch competition on Tuesday, April 6, and the live final round and awards presentation on Friday, April 9, will be broadcast on YouTube and the RBPC website.

What: 2021 Rice Business Plan Competition elevator pitch competition, live final round and awards presentation.

When (all times CDT):

• Elevator pitch competition: Tuesday, April 6, 4-5:15 p.m.
• Live final round: Friday, April 9, 9 a.m.-noon
• Awards presentation: Friday, April 9, 1:30-2:15 p.m.

Where: Watch the livestreams on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/ricealliance or at https://rbpc.rice.edu/2021-competition.

The student startups will compete in five sector categories: energy, clean tech and sustainability; life sciences and health care solutions; consumer products and services; hard tech; and digital and enterprise software.

The awards presentation will also include short updates from last year’s grand prize winner, Aurign, the second-place team, Nanopath, and the first RBPC startup to go public, Hyliion.

Past competitors have raised more than $3.1 billion in total capital, and 257 startups have gone on to be successful, including 36 acquisitions and two initial public offerings: Hyliion (2015 RBPC finalist) and Owlet Baby Care (2013 RBPC finalist).

For more information about the 2021 Rice Business Plan Competition, visit http://rbpc.rice.edu.