Experiential Learning Accelerators


Dyes Detect Disease Through Heartbeat Signals

UConn Today – Vibrant tones of yellow, orange, and red move in waves across the screen. Although the display looks like psychedelic art, it’s actually providing highly technical medical information – the electrical activity of a beating heart stained with voltage-sensitive dyes to test for injury or disease.

These voltage-sensitive dyes were developed and patented by UConn Health researchers, who have now embarked on commercializing their product for industry as well as academic use.


Dyes Detect Disease Through Heartbeat Signals

Health News Digest – Vibrant tones of yellow, orange, and red move in waves across the screen. Although the display looks like psychedelic art, it’s actually providing highly technical medical information – the electrical activity of a beating heart stained with voltage-sensitive dyes to test for injury or disease.


UConn Innovation Quest: SR ClampLight

CTStartup Podcast– Sometimes the simplest innovation can have the largest impact, and can even save lives in the right situation.
The SR Clamplight is a firefighting tool created by Jerry Reyes-Riviera, a volunteer firefighter who saw a way to make this dangerous profession a little bit safer for his fellow firefighters.

Tune in for this UConn Innovation Quest interview and hear how this simple invention could mean the difference between life and death for the brave men and women of the local fire department.


UConn Innovation Quest: Macroscopic Solutions

CTStartup Podcast– Though most of the startups that participated in the UConn Innovation Quest are in the earliest stages of building their business, one returning company, Macroscopic Solutions, is a veteran of the IQ challenge, and returned to offer both advice, and a look at just how far they have come.

We sat down with Mark Smith of Macroscopic, who has been a guest on CTStartup as well, to discuss how IQ helped his business grow from an idea into a full-time job with international reach.


UConn Grad Experiences Entrepreneurial Evolution

Innovation Destination Hartford – University of Connecticut graduate Ali Oshinskie is a driven entrepreneur. The self-taught podcaster launched Podstories in May 2017 and is making a name for herself here in Greater Hartford.

Ali and Innovation Destination Hartford Website Curator Nan Price met at Café Fifty-Five for coffee and conversation about Ali’s experience with UConn’s Innovation Quest and what it means to be an entrepreneur.


UConn Innovation Quest: Flux Forcefield

CTStartup Podcast– No matter what automakers do, creative thieves find ways to defeat even the most elaborate anti-theft devices. Indeed, it is almost impossible to stop a truly determined thief, and even if you do, proving their guilt can be difficult unless you catch them red-handed. But what if you could add an anti-theft device to your car that did just that?

The students behind Flux Forcefield, another entry in UConn’s Innovation Quest business incubator, has created an anti-theft deterrent that could send repeat offenders behind bars for a long time.


UConn Innovation Quest: Dermatat

CTStartup Podcast– Tattoos were once considered taboo and the realm of weirdos and ne’er-do-wells, but in the 21st century body ink has gone mainstream. Alas, that also means a number of tattoos done in questionable taste, and despite many wonders of modern medicine, the only current treatment for tattoo removal is both painful and expensive.

But what if tattoo removal was as simple as applying a band-aid? That’s the idea behind Dermatat, a concept straight out of UConn’s Innovation Quest business incubator. Tune in to check out what could be the next revolution in the tattoo industry.


Mansfield Man Eyes New Ways To Take Macro Photos

Hartford Courant – In high school science classes in Pennsylvania, Mark Smith used just a standard, tabletop microscope to magnify the samples of minerals and rocks that would inspire him to become a geologist.

But in his free time, the teenager was helping to build a much more powerful device — a macro photography system that could compete with the best on the market to produce ultra-high resolution, full-color images of the tiniest things on Earth.



UConn Innovation Quest: CRISPR – X

CTStartup Podcast– You may not have heard of it, but CRISPR (that stands for “clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats”) could change the face of modern medicine as we know it. Many startups are involved in trying to utilize CRISPR to cure diseases, but a couple of college students may have already beaten them to the punch.

UConn students Ryan Englander and Nandan Tumu are developing a way to use CRISPR as a means of fighting off certain kinds of cancers even after they’re developed. Could these two college students find the cancer breakthrough that has eluded modern medicine for so long?