For the 11th year, Stony Brook University hosted its annual WolfieTank competition, encouraging students to develop and present entrepreneurial ideas to a panel of industry judges. The event, inspired by the television show Shark Tank, took place on November 5 at the Charles B. Wang Center and brought together participants from various disciplines including medicine, engineering, business, and the arts.
David Ecker, director of iCREATE and founder of WolfieTank, emphasized the importance of providing a platform for student entrepreneurs. “It feels successful to me every year because we get to empower entrepreneurs and get them to really develop and showcase their work,” Ecker said. “We need to have a way of showcasing their entrepreneurial ideas, and this is a way.”
Ecker highlighted the diversity among participants as key to the event’s impact. “We have an ecosystem of students that we never expected, ideas coming from medicine, engineering and business, all seeing the same thing going on in the marketplace,” he said. “We cultivate that through our classes, through our activities, and through what we’re trying to live with here on Long Island and throughout the world.”
This year’s first-place winner was Kelly Kaon, a second-year medical student who founded Dermatological—a community-based organization focused on skin health education. Kaon described her group as “a community-based organization where we truly listen to our members talk about their skin diseases and skin disorders… It’s really a safe place for them to talk about it.” Dermatological has expanded nationally with 15 branches reaching over 30,000 people. Kaon plans to use her $2,500 prize for publishing a children’s book about skin health.
The second-place team—Robbie Torres, Woochul Lin, Minjun Lee and Moonkyu Jun—received $1,000 for their EmoAI Translator project. Their technology aims to improve hospital communication by translating not only language but also emotional tone. Torres explained: “According to the data, 25% of patient safety incidents are miscommunication… That’s almost one in four people every single day that happens.” He added: “It automatically detects your tone… Based on that, it demonstrates whether you’re feeling anger, sadness or happiness.”
Ecker noted that many past participants have gone on to launch nonprofits or businesses after competing in WolfieTank. He said: “Some have developed nonprofits, others started businesses. Without this, we can’t catapult our excellent students’ great ideas into something else.”
Judges for this year included Derek Peterson (CEP and Founder of Soter Technologies), Michael Lane (chairman of Long Island Capital Alliance), Danielle Tedesco (Stony Brook alumna and director of strategy and innovation for HealthPlan Services), and Bob Williams (president of IVMatters Inc.).
WolfieTank is organized collaboratively by Stony Brook University’s College of Business; College of Engineering and Applied Sciences; Division of Information Technology; Office for Research and Innovation; with support from partners such as Soter Technologies; Softheon; IVMatters; Carter DeLuca & Farrell LLP; Marcum; and Long Island High Tech Incubator.
Ecker encouraged all student participants regardless of outcome: “Anything is possible,” he said. “Your ideas really have a place here. We cultivate ideas. We want to nurture them to be successful. Every idea is valuable, and if you keep working at it you’re going to take that and live a success.”
He added: “If you can do it here at college you’re going to be more successful in your career.”
