Three University of Georgia international graduate students used the hassle of finding roommates as inspiration for Dawg House — an app that won first prize at the 2024 UGA Entrepreneurship Program Summer Design Sprint.

“I was amazed by all the different types of perspectives they were able to come up with,” said Brian Anderson, one of the Design Sprint judges and senior director of Enterprise Human-Centered Design at Cox Enterprises, which has sponsored the contest for the past two years. “The other thing was their prototype was done really well. I could see how it would work and how a student would interact with the app.”

This is the fourth time UGA Entrepreneurship hosted the Summer Design Sprint – a six-week program bringing students from all parts of the university together for an intensive crash course in design thinking, said Don Chambers, program facilitator and associate director of the Entrepreneurship Program. Students start by identifying a problem in their community, conduct on-the-ground research to develop a solution, and eventually create a detailed plan or prototype for that solution.

UGA horticulture graduate student Emilio Romero and UGA engineering graduate students Manuel Blaser and Muneeb Malik remember searching Facebook Marketplace to find places to live before they came from Brazil, Sweden and Pakistan. It was hard to commit to renting a place before seeing it in person, and easy to fall prey to scams and shady roommates, Romero said.

Their solution, the Dawg House app, allows users to register with their UGA ID number and search through roommate profiles to find someone with the same priorities and interests. Requiring UGA ID numbers as a vetting mechanism gives students an extra sense of confidence that they won’t be scammed.

“There were other international students in the same situation as I was before I came to the U.S., but we had no way to connect,” said Blaser, who moved to Athens in the fall of 2023. “With the matching options we have, other international students could find roommates and places to live before they come to Athens.”

Later, the team plans to open the app to property management companies or landlords looking to connect to the student population. These advertisers would fund the app’s operation, Malik told judges.

While 57 students started the Summer Design Sprint process this June, only 19 students — comprising six teams — were selected to pitch to Anderson and Cox Enterprises Human-Centered Design colleagues Amy Lin and Cole Mokry.

In addition to Dawg House, the judges recognized a mobile food pantry concept developed by recent Terry College graduate Morgan Pope, marketing student Sophia Beasley and finance student Lukas Cornish with second place. This concept was particulary interesting to the judges as Cox Enterprises is trying to solve a similar problem through their new venture, Cox Farms, growing fresh fruits and vegetables closer to urban areas in need. InternMania, a platform for matching interns with small businesses created by computer science student Hailey Hubbard and intended business student Laura Bradley Smith, was in third place.

Other teams that presented in the final round included:

• Sync Band, a concept for a wearable band that would monitor student learning in K-12 schools, was created by finance and management information sciences students Verner Wilson and Andre Akinyemi, Braylen Howell and finance student Josh Waller.

• Sky, a concept for drone-assisted crowd control surveillance for music festivals, was created by MIS major Tyler Meyer, music student Michael Solomon, management student Toluwa Dahunsi and entertainment and media studies student Sierra Moore.

• Load Wave, a warehouse data tracking system created by finance student Anushka Sharma, economics and international business student Muskaan Lakhani and supply chain management student Ava Dorminey.

The mission of the UGA Entrepreneurship Program is to help develop the mindset of future entrepreneurs and prepare students for business leadership roles. UGA Entrepreneurship Program accelerators are open to UGA students and Athens community members.