IoT Businesses Launching with Help from MatchBOX Studios and Indiana IoT Lab Fishers
LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Three Indiana founders spent their summers in a collaborative acceleration program, working through their business models and developing prototypes alongside MatchBOX Studios and Indiana IoT Lab Fishers.
Nine years after founding the national outreach non-profit Deaf Kids Code, Shireen Hafeez applied for the Product Accelerator program. The work that she’d done to promote technology, computer science, and design thinking skills as an innovative tool to empower deaf students made an unsolved problem impossible to ignore.
“Technology that allows deaf students and adults to visualize communication in real time was feasible, and I started WordzAI to utilize connected tech to make it possible,” said Hafeez.
Hafeez, alongside seven other innovators who were accepted into the cohort, first worked with MatchBOX facilitators through six weeks of startup curriculum to refine their business ideas, understand their product and how to pitch it, and explore their customers and what they need and want.
At the completion of that portion of the program, four founders moved forward to be paired with fabrication specialists to assist with their prototype builds.
The prototyping phase, where the innovators work with experts to build early models of their products, happens next. David Bolling, executive director for Launch Fishers and Indiana IoT Lab, explained, “Having worked through the business model first, we can approach the prototyping phase with a clearer understanding of how the end user will eventually interact with the connected product. What physical features does it need to have? How can we build it to enable necessary functionality? What are the best prototyping processes to get something that looks and works like the founders envisioned?”
Jason Tennenhouse, executive director at MatchBOX, said, ““This is a first-of-its-kind program in the state of Indiana, and another opportunity for MatchBOX to support early stage entrepreneurs.. And thanks to funding from and collaboration with the IOT Lab in Fishers, there’s zero cost, in cash or equity, for the founders who are accepted. This is an incredible program for any hardware entrepreneur or someone developing a connected product.”
Hafeez is eager to continue developing WordzAI , testing her prototype in various markets and locations, and working with beta users to perfect the technology and delivery. She said, “I founded WordzAI to improve the live communication experience for anyone who may be experiencing difficulties in an inaccessibly loud environment that can impair one’s ability to listen. Now that I have a prototype, I’ve put together a focus customer advisory group that I’m working closely with to ensure product market fit. I’m eager to move into additional testing and hope to secure funding to make this technology available in some markets very soon.”
To learn more about the Product Accelerator by MatchBOX Studios and Indiana IoT Lab Fishers, register for the graduation event, or apply for the next cohort, visit www.mbx.studio/iotax.