The Western New England University BlinkTek team has been awarded the $500 Innovation Jam award at the Draper Competition for Collegiate Women Entrepreneurs held at Smith College on April 5. This team went from winning first place at Western New England's Emerging Engineers Expo, to participating in the Western Mass Innovation Jam (startup weekend), to enrolling in an independent ENTR study, and then entering the Draper Competition.
The team has developed a device called Heat Shield that would be attached to a fire helmet to detect a firefighter's health vitals. Such monitoring can help prevent injuries that occur in firefighters from exhaustion or overheating. The device has a green/yellow/red set of indicators that would be on the periphery of the helmet so as to not distract the firefighters, but still help the firefighter understand if he/she were having possible health signals that needed attention.
