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LOWELL, Mass. - A product that detects and helps seal leaks in ill-fitting face masks to protect against COVID-19 and other environmental hazards recently won top honors in UMass Lowell s annual student entrepreneurship pitch competition.
Called TrueFIT, the invention was named the Rist Campuswide DifferenceMaker in UMass Lowell s 2021 DifferenceMaker $50,000 Idea Challenge, a contest that caps a year-long program that teaches students in all majors skills they can use to launch their own businesses and nonprofits.
TrueFIT was one of 10 innovations showcased before expert judges during the competition s final round, which was held online and viewed by more than 100 people. Fifty teams entered the challenge, now in its ninth year.
David Perry
It was a cousinâs lacrosse injury that inspired Alyssa Mulry to dream up ConnectKnee, a brace that tracks a patientâs recovery time. Mulryâs cousin dislocated her patella during a soccer game, requiring long recovery. Then a friend and family members also suffered knee injuries.
âI saw first-hand how limited and discouraging recovery for a knee injury was,â says Mulry, a senior biomedical engineering major from Rutland, Massachusetts. âOne thing stayed the same: a slow and often discouraging recovery. Then the idea really just took off after that.âÂ
ConnectKnee topped a field of 17 entries in the seventh-annual DifferenceMaker Francis College of Engineering Prototyping Competition. The top three teams, and a crowd favorite, won cash prizes. Overall, five teams were selected from the preliminaries in November to present their pitches to a panel of judges.Â