Inaugural Accelerator

On Friday, April 29, the inaugural cohort of the Weston Ideation Lab Accelerator program pitched their companies to a panel of judges. Four companies competed after working on their companies for the Spring Semester. To qualify for the accelerator, companies needed to be past the initial "idea" stage, each team was required to have at least one Cleveland State University student and submit an application for the program. Not all applications were accepted.

Reasonable and measurable milestones were set upon acceptance into the Accelerator. Throughout the Spring 2022 Semester, each team had specific guidelines including attending workshops, meeting with mentors, presenting a "lessons learned" PPT for each workshop, developing a six to twelve month forecast, conducting market research and learning more about how to finance their venture.

In all, the inaugural cohort was comprised of six companies and included students from six different universities.

First place went to Native Ingredients, a specialty beverage company seeking to improve the lives of people within the communities they serve. Native ingredients is headed up by Cameron Tolbert, a Cleveland State University Bachelor of Business Administration alumnus who majored in Operations & Supply Chain Management. On his team was Richard Reske, a current MBA student.

Second place went to Cellula, who developed a non-invasive and inexpensive cast modifier device for diagnosing different conditions underneath casted fractures. The four-person team was led by Gina Tubo, NEOMED, Medicine and included Brian Foresi (NEOMED, Medicine), Cazrina Legitimas, Cleveland State University Computer Engineering undergraduate student and Lauren McKown, Kent State University, Entrepreneurship major.

Third place went to BarFli a social dating application company lead by Maxwell Warren, a Cleveland State University undergraduate Business student. His team included Arafath Nihar, a Case Western Reserve University Computer Science major, Kyle Corcoran, a Cleveland State University Computer Science major and Willie Warren, Jr. a University of Miami Business student.

Fourth place was Modern Video Productions LLC, headed up by Andrew Cirincione, a Cleveland State University Film major and Jennifer Matlak, his Marketing Coordinator.

Judges included Avani Doshi, Principal of A. Doshi LLC; Claude Kennard, retired CEO and owner of Metal Alloy Reclaimers and Jumpstart mentor and David Lupyan, CEO of Lupyan & Associates.