Booz Allen Hamilton Hosts First Startup Weekend in Partnership with Techstars to Create Cyber-Focused Solutions in New Innovation Center
Booz Allen Hamilton partnered with leading global startup accelerator Techstars for a cybersecurity-focused Startup Weekend, held in the new Booz Allen Innovation Center in Washington, DC from Friday, April 29 to Sunday, May 1.
Over 100 Booz Allen employees gathered throughout the weekend to lend their expertise in cybersecurity, design, product development, marketing, and engineering to create a cyber-focused solution. Speakers, mentors, and judges from across the DC innovation community joined the event; including:
- Peter Levin: Founder and CEO of Amida Technology Solutions and Former Chief Technology Officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs
- Eric Koester: Co-Founder of Main Street Genome, Venture Partner of NextGen Venture Partners, and Georgetown University Professor
- Mack Kolarich: Startup Weekend Facilitator, VP of Product for Startup Angels, and Co-Founder of Spontaneous Labs
- Booz Allen executives who participated throughout the weekend include Raynor Dahlquist-Hutchinson, Stan Lowe, and Chad Gray
“Throughout the weekend, Booz Allen employees experienced the exhilaration and pressure that embodies life at a startup.” said Jon Clifford, Global Partnerships at Techstars, “In 54 hours 30 ideas were pitched, 8 teams formed, and 3 teams will advance to Startup Next, the #1 pre-acceleration program in the world. There the teams will receive mentorship from Booz Allen, Techstars, and local innovators.”
Ideas ranged from an interactive game that protects children from cyber threats (Team Costanza), democratized cybersecurity tools (Team Yeti), a risk-based solutions generation engine (Team Solver), a social engineering prevention tool (Team SOES), and a product to identify and privatize vulnerabilities (Team Software Defined Environment).
Teams’ ideas were judged on three criteria: validation, execution and design, and business model. The following winning will advance to Startup Next:
- Exploit4Insight: a vulnerability data feed that prioritizes responses to cyberthreats so customers can easily understand when to address a security breach
- Willow Connected: an app that facilitates providing pet therapy to patients by scheduling, providing feedback, and taking photos of pet therapy visits to deliver better patient care in hospitals
- Cyber Tower: an analytics solution that provides companies with a real-time risk score of their cyber health using three measurements--user behavior, high value information assets, and the external threat landscape
“This is the first in a series of Techstars-powered entrepreneurial events that will enable Booz Allen to ideate, collaborate, and transform ideas into market solutions with employees and the innovation community” said Brad Medairy, Senior Vice President at Booz Allen. He continued, “Combining the strengths of Techstars with the resources of our new Innovation Center empowers our employees to think and work differently.”
