Two senior WSU bioengineering students took first place at WSU’s 14th annual Business Plan Competition on April 22 for their work in developing sterilizing injections.

Emily Willard and Katherine Brandenstein’s group, called Engage, was one of 24 teams of college entrepreneurs in the competition, according to a news release.

“The project started out as our Bioengineering senior capstone project,” Willard said. “Since the project was a yearlong, we decided we wanted to work on a project that focused on social impact to keep our interest.”

Willard said the pair researched leading causes of death in developing countries and found that contaminated injections are a huge problem in these regions.

According to the WHO, Willard said, about 16 billion injections are given yearly in developing countries and nearly 7 billion are contaminated.

“We started brainstorming how we could solve the problem and came up with our product, SafeShot,” Willard said.

SafeShot is a cap that contains a sterilizing agent within the cap that sanitizes needles before they enter the medication to prevent the spread of blood borne pathogens, Willard said.

According to the news release, other projects included rural communication networks to ensure safe transport to maternal health clinics in the developing world, unique ways to advertise to college students and systems to ensure transparency in college sports recruiting.

Willard said in March the group won first place and $10,000 at UW’s first Health Innovation Challenge. They were the only non-UW team competing and became the first ever non-UW team to win one of the business competitions or challenges.

Last weekend they won $15,000 at WSU’s Business Plan Competition. They also won best social impact for $2,500, Willard said.

“As engineers, we would rather focus on the technical aspect of our project,” Willard said. “But it is important for us to learn more than that. There is a need for engineers to be able to take their product further than just a product, but actually bring it to market.”

Willard and Brandenstein had the opportunity to meet Dr. Leen Kawas, keynote speaker of the event. She is the CEO of M3 Biotechnology and a scientist.

“We are very lucky to have her support,” Willard said. “She even dropped by our table at the UW Business Plan Competition and gave us a pep talk. One of our goals is to encourage younger girls to become involved in STEM and Leen is a great role model for us and other girls to follow.”

The next step for Engage is to compete in UW’s Business Plan Competition Sweet Sixteen round at the end of May.

Reporting by Hannah Welzbacker