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Unisys and Walnut St. Labs Partner for Innovative Prototyping and Software Design

WEST CHESTER, PA – Walnut St. Labs, an Innovation Lab in West Chester, PA, is partnering with Unisys Corporation to hold a product prototyping competition.

The prototyping competition, to be held at Walnut St. Labs across five weeks starting on April 15, will be geared towards user interface and user experience designers. The winners of the competition will receive a cash prize and will have the chance to meet with Unisys to discuss details of their design. Both Unisys and Walnut St. Labs will deliver eight micro courses during the competition in areas like Rapid Prototyping and Design Thinking.

“This is what we always dreamed about doing — elevating innovation by partnering with great companies like Unisys and doing innovative things,” said Chris Dima, Founder and CEO of Walnut St. Labs. “The team at Unisys understands innovation and will be a super productive partner.”

Walnut St. Labs was formed at the end of 2013. Its mission is to foster innovation through co-working, weekly events and technology incubation.

“Unisys has a long, proud history of innovation,” said Jim Thompson, chief engineer and vice president of engineering and supply chain at Unisys. “We also see a new wave of ideas from innovation labs like Walnut St. Labs, and we want to be a part of that. By combining Unisys’ tradition of innovation with the capabilities of Walnut St. Labs, we can have the best of both worlds.”

Over the course of the next few weeks, Walnut St. Labs and Unisys will be announcing details of the competition. Applications to participate are being accepted beginning April 1. For more information, please contact Ben Bock at Walnut St. Labs (ben@walnutstlabs.com) or Brittney Burchett at Unisys (brittney.burchett@unisys.com).

Get the complete details: https://protocomp.wsldivi4.kinsta.cloud/

About Walnut St. Labs

Walnut Street Labs is an innovation hub located in West Chester, PA. Its mission is to promote and create innovation in greater Chester County and Southeastern PA. WSL has established a physical space for startups to work and collaborate, a robust event calendar filled with inspirational entrepreneurs and innovators along with an advisor network, comprised of business leaders with a wide range of expertise.

About Unisys

Unisys is a global information technology company that solves complex IT challenges at the intersection of modern and mission critical. We work with many of the world’s largest companies and government organizations to secure and keep their mission-critical operations running at peak performance; streamline and transform their data centers; enhance support to their end users and constituents; and modernize their enterprise applications. We do this while protecting and building on their legacy IT investments. Our offerings include outsourcing and managed services, systems integration and consulting services, high-end server technology, cybersecurity and cloud management software, and maintenance and support services. Unisys has more than 20,000 employees serving clients around the world. For more information, visit www.unisys.com.

FaceCrunch Demo

FaceCrunch

Jonathon Beschen, Founder of FaceCrunch

What was the Problem that you planned to solve with FaceCrunch?

“There wasn’t a problem per se so much as new research that we found extremely intriguing. A/B advertising has been around for a long time but optimizing an ad based on people’s innate responses to the models seems less common and using that information to come up with formulaic answer to ‘will this image work for me’ was even more exciting. So if I were to frame a problem, I’d say a lack of understanding to how people naturally associate facial structures with industries.”
–Jonathon Beshchen, Founder of FaceCrunch

How does FaceCrunch hope to solve this problem?

“FC solves this problem by doing a full eigenface analysis on every image that passes through our system and cross compares it to every other face in the system. It then scores its ‘similarity’ and then those are associated with industry successes through A/B tests.”
–Jonathon Beshchen, Founder of FaceCrunch

What’s next for FaceCrunch?

“Next up is a massive open beta where we let in the masses to try our app, and increase the number of industries we support.”
–Jonathon Beshchen, Founder of FaceCrunch

ClusterPuck 99 Demo with The PHL Collective

Post #ClusterPuck99 Demo Interview

@PHLCollective

What was the problem that ClusterPuck 99 hoped to solve?

“We set out to develop a game that brought back local multiplayer experiences where friends gather in a room and play games. We wanted to take the isolation out of current games and throw it back to our youth when internet connected games weren’t a thing.”
–Nick Madonna, Founder of The PHL Collective

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How did you guys go about solving the problem?

“There were a number of design goals we set with the game and hitting them was paramount to creating a successful product. Gamers who enjoy local multiplayer experiences look for a certain number of features that help enable the party atmosphere. We wanted to make sure we could satisfy those needs while also doing something new and exciting. Outside of features we wanted to boil down the gameplay into a simple loop and button combination. The game needed to be easy to pick up but hard to master. This design choice helped bring new players in and easily introduced them to the core mechanics.”
–Nick Madonna, Founder of The PHL Collective

What’s next for ClusterPuck 99?

“Next up we will be releasing ClusterPuck 99 on Xbox One. It’s a huge task and we’re currently working our butts off to make sure we deliver the best ClusterPuck experience on consoles.”
–Nick Madonna, Founder of The PHL Collective

Science as Creative Process w/Lars Knutsen, Requis Pharmaceuticals

Lars Knutsen, CEO and Co-founder, Requis Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

www.requispharma.com

Lars Knutsen’s introductory slide is filled with black lines resembling ant trails–diagrams of the chemical structure of the successful drugs he’s developed over the course of his career. Early on, the self-proclaimed “chemistry nerd” interviewed for a Pfizer-sponsored Ph.D. spot at University College London, where the words of his interviewer stuck with him: “You’ll always have a job, because people are afraid of dying.”

He later joined Glaxo and studied for his Ph.D. while working there. But despite the success he found in big business, he found it difficult to be entrepreneurial in a large company. “You hire people with great ideas and then tell them they can’t do any of them.”

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Today, Lars is CEO and co-founder of emerging biotech company Requis Pharmaceuticals, which offers “patented, de-risked treatments for central nervous system conditions.” It’s a perfect fit for him to fully embrace the creative aspects of science.

Science as a Creative Process
“You get high on ideas. Peptides and oxytocin are released in the brain and make you feel good. Everything is chemistry.”

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“What do you think the artist thinks about? Do they think about fine wines or black tie affairs? No, they live for that narcotic moment of creative bliss. A moment that may come once in a decade, or never at all.” Lars uses this quote from the movie Art School Confidential to underscore his point. “Making drugs is a highly creative process. Big CEOs at big companies don’t realize that.”

The Malaise in the Pharma Industry
“We are observing a general lack of innovation in the industry.”

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The prices of pharmaceutical stocks have plunged, and Lars points to big company mentality as one of the factors. “It’s a tough environment in which to invent drugs. We are observing a general lack of innovation in the industry. When I started, a scientist could argue for a point. Today, that scientist would be fired for arguing that point.”

“Senior management can appear to be remote, and may not understand inventions and research. R & D sites are seen as cost centers.” In addition, Lars notes that “stockmarkets have a very short attention span, which is incompatible with long term R&D horizons.”

The Prescription: Entrepreneurs
“Creativity doesn’t happen when there’s a gun to your head. It happens when you’re doing something relaxing.”

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According to Lars, entrepreneurs are valued in the U.S. Small companies are nimble and can change direction quickly, maximizing on creative potential. “We have a great opportunity in ‘de-risked’ Requis. People-sized organizations are the best. Places where everyone can sit down in one room and interact, 400 people tops.”

On Requisom:
“Sleep is like the new sex. Everybody wants it and nobody gets it.”

Sleep aids are a huge part of the biopharma market: $23 billion. “In addition, snoring is a problem and right now there is no drug for snoring.” Requisom addresses both issues. “When evaluated in human volunteers, sleep improved, and subjects stopped snoring.” A tablet comprised of a combination of doxylamine (an antihistamine), tryptophan, and melatonin, Lars notes that separately, these ingredients are available in products on the market right now.

As of now, the FDA decided that Requisom can be available only with a prescription, but it may visit the possibility of over-the-counter access in the future.

SplashFlood’s Pre-Funding Office Hours Testimonial

Chris Thompson from SplashFlood

The guys at SplashFlood were a few days away from their big pitch and turned to Walnut St. Labs’ Office Hours to put on some final touches. With the help of our Innovation Advisors, the pitch was a total success, and they got funding the next week!

Here’s what one of their Cofounders, Chris Thompson had to say about the experience:

“The Office Hours session with Ray Sarnacki happened days before our pitch to an investor. His vast experience and wise insight helped us better understand the investor perspective and therefore present our value proposition in a more compelling manner. He followed up multiple times afterwards with additional helpful information. Ray’s feedback on our presentation was instrumental in us securing the funding.”

In addition to two office hours sessions with Ray Sarnacki of The Wharton School of Business, Ralph and Chris met with Terry Kerwin, an attorney at Fox Rothschild, for some startup legal help.

Here’s Chris again:

“Being able to receive free legal advice from Terry Kerwin through Office Hours was very helpful at our pre-funding stage. Terry provided helpful advice without making us feel stupid! We walked away with a clear action plan on how to resolve issues that were haunting us.”

Terry Kerwin, attorney at Fox Rothschild

Ray Sarnacki

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