Smart Pet Collar Wins Trinity College’s Innovation Challenge

An electronic pet collar that communicates with a smart car sensor to reduce the chances of an accident between pet and vehicle was the winning business proposal in this year’s Trinity College Summit Innovation Challenge.

The product, dubbed the Paw Patroller, was pitched by Trinity students Cooper Edwards ’28, Andrew Gabriel ’28, and Owen Reilly ’28.

Reilly developed the idea after he got into a car crash with an animal, said Edwards. “We wanted to stop and prevent animal collisions that cost an estimated $8 billion in claims every year.”

Americans also spend money on their pets. In 2022, the Bureau of Labor tabulated that U.S. households spent $136.8 billon on their pets, an increase of 11 percent over 2021.

The Paw Patroller team is currently identifying the right people to develop the technology. “We would be doing the judges who believed in us a disservice if we didn’t see how far this idea can really go,” said Edwards.

Organized by Trinity’s Center for Entrepreneurship, the Summit Innovation Challenge is the annual marquee event for first-year students taking part in the two-year Tyree Innovation Fellowship Program. The event was held at the Cornelia Center on January 23.

Paw Patroller competed against two other inventions: SmartGuard, a prevention product for severe respiratory attacks, pitched by Hadas Ali ’28 and Cameron Hicks ’28; and Penny Pilot, a holistic wealth management app developed by Shivang Mathur ’28, Vyom Moorjani ’28, and Xavier Ortiz ’28. The teams were advised by alumni Nick Neokakis ’93, Ted Moise ’87, and Masumi Nakamura ’97.

Sponsored by the Beba Foundation, the Summit Innovation Challenge was judged by a panel of alumni and family: Arthur F. Muldoon Jr. ’88, Tom Lazay ’95, Jen Openshaw whose husband is Durant Schwimmer ’78,  Umran Beba P ’26, and Neokakis.

Trinity alumni also played a role in mentoring first-year students on their project development, and returned to talk to the group about their successes. Brooks Gammill ’24 spoke about his product RecruitU, a solution to systemic challenges in the recruitment industry, and Lola Craig ’24, about lolo sticks, her patent-pending 3-in-1 delivery device for makeup.

In addition to the Trinity student contenders, the event invited participation from Hartford Magnet Trinity College Academy (HMTCA) high school students who pursued the same curriculum that Trinity students had received.

In all, 78 HMTCA students pursued the curriculum, learning how to take products from concept to prototype, said Danny Briere, executive director of the Center for Entrepreneurship. That effort was coordinated by Liliana Polley of Trinity’s Center for Hartford Engagement and Research (CHER).

“Trinity sent judges to the HMTCA program to help pick the three winners who would present at Trinity and ultimately at the Connecticut Invention Convention finals at UConn later this semester,” said Briere.

The three high school teams that presented at the challenge, and received iPads for their work: Quack-O-Matic, robotic cleaning device by Jerry Rosado and Luis Velez Morales; LaunderDry, an inexpensive clothes-drying system by Gabriella Mera; and Radiance Specs, eyeglass lighting for low-light situations by Mili Ortiz-Perez and Odalys Cilia.

“Leading up to the event, the students felt a mix of excitement and nerves,” said Vasyl Oleksenko, HMTCA teacher. “The next day, they could not stop talking about the ‘positivity in the room’.”