From Smart Cities to Music Algorithms, Meet 3 Student-Led Startups From CREATE-X Demo Day

create-x demo day

Entrepreneurship as a course of study is increasingly popular on college campuses — nearly 90 percent of young people believe that entrepreneurship education is important, according to the Young Entrepreneur Council. This demand has led to a rise in university-supported entrepreneurship programs, many of which can be taken for course credit or utilize professors as guides and mentors.

Georgia Tech’s CREATE-X allows students to explore entrepreneurship by launching their own startups — complete with seed funding, mentorship, and coaching. Over 1000 students have gone through a CREATE-X program; over 70 startups have launched. Many have been accepted into incubators and accelerators across the country, and many have received follow-on funding, totaling in the millions.

These are thoughtful companies — CREATE-X focuses on building what they call “deep startups”, meaning companies that will have a long-term impact. Students aren’t just taught to make a quick exit, but to build a sustainable product and grow their team.

CREATE-X’s most intensive program is Startup Launch, a two-semester intensive where students receive $20,000 seed funding, legal and IP resources, and mentorship. This year the program received 185 applications; 30 were accepted.

After a lot of hard work identifying a market, honing in on a product, and scaling their growth, this Wednesday over two dozen CREATE-X startups presented in a Demo Day at the Fox Theater. With products from coffee to musical platforms, these young founders are tackling some of the world’s fastest-growing industries.

You’ve seen some of this year’s CREATE-X startups on Hype already: BoxFynder, a subscription box service, and InternBlitz, a service that allows internship seekers to search and apply for thousands of positions with just one click. We’ve also talked to alumni from fitness platform FitGenie, water quality testing strip TruePani, and storage marketplace STORD, amongst others.

Meet just a few more of our favorites below:

Autohub

This app, available on iOS, combines and consolidates a wide variety of automotive content into its platform. That includes automotive news, videos, and vehicle specifications — think everything from a car’s market value to its transmission, horsepower, torque, and weight — on over 2000 vehicles. Car shopping and need to compare details? Save your favorites to go back later when you’re in the dealership.

The platform also caters to the automotive racing enthusiast, allowing users to follow their favorite motorsports series and get race results from places like Nascar and IndyCar.

Centree

Cities are busy, noisy places. Even walking one busy urban block can expose your ears to sounds of car honks, sirens, construction projects, and possibly even an emergency incident. Founded by two Computer Science students, Centree analyzes audio data to classify, recognize, and analyze when an emergency incident like a car accident or break-in is occurring.

The machine learning platform allows individuals to upload and tag audio files, and a real-time map shows where accidents and incidents are occurring. This can allow authorities to get a more high-level view of the city, plan and respond faster to emergencies, and save money, time, and potentially lives.

Crescendo

Musicians practicing alone often have to rely on their own pitch detection. Crescendo’s app and music-detection algorithm allows a user to take a picture of sheet music, detects the pitch, and determines how close the musician is to the actual melody when they attempt to play the song. They can practice matching the song exactly and, over time, improve.

Their team of advisors and investors includes musicians and experts in music technology and music education.

Photos via CREATE-X and featured companies