UA Student Entrepreneurs Shine In Nokia Challenge

Yesterday, a press release was issued reporting that LenSense, a student-run company established through the University of Arizona's McGuire Center for Entrepreneurship, was the only team comprised entirely of college students among the 12 finalists in Nokia’s “Mobile Rules!” Challenge. The challenge is a major annual competition for business plans, applications and technology innovation. Approximately 100 companies, very few of which are university-based enterprises, presented their ideas for getting innovative new technologies in the hands of mobile device users.

The LenSense flagship product is a compact, voltage-controlled, zoom lens module specifically designed to address the problem of camera phones currently offering limited resolution and no optical zoom. When applied to a cell phone camera, the technology applies a small amount of voltage, changing the focal length and allowing the camera to achieve true optical zoom, improved picture quality and improved battery life without compromising the compact size to which cell phone consumers have grown accustomed. The aim is to optimize the technology of the one type of camera that is held all day every day--the one on our phones.
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The startup hopes to supply lenses to cameras worldwide by 2013 after extensive R&D and partnerships with cell phone manufacturers. With a 300 million cell phone camera user population that is constantly growing, the market will certainly be there in 2013. But that isn't to suggest that the real excitement is too far away; as finalists, the LenSense team were able to personally present their business plan to Nokia executives in California, which is quite amazing given their age. Also I imagine that Nokia won't be the only execs interested; VCs will most likely swoop in for commercialization if the startup is able to obtain some IP and continue refine the technology.