Two SMU teams were among the five student firms selected to present their concepts in McCord Auditorium Monday, Nov. 16. The students competed for the 2015 regional Global Student Entrepreneur Awards, sponsored by the international Entrepreneurs’ Organization. The GSEA is a global competition for student entrepreneurs who actively run a business.
Both SMU teams are past winners of the University’s Big iDeas Pitch Contest. Eddie Allegra, Miguel Quimbar, Jack Reynolds and BioLum Sciences won in 2014 with their smartphone-based asthma detection system. The Fiddler rooftop wind turbine designed by Jonah Kirby, Cameron Buller, Alec Siems, Brendan Celii and Luke Oglesbee came up victorious in the 2015 competition.
The BioLum team, winners of Monday night’s GSEA contest, have already aced a string of competitions that include the RECESS Festival 2015 Pitch Competition in Los Angeles and SMU’s 2015 Big iDeas Business Plan Competition. They now proceed to the U.S. national competition in Miami; a victory there will mean a trip to Bangkok, Thailand for the GSEA Global Finals.
But Allegra, who has a personal history of living with asthma, hasn’t let the accolades obscure a higher purpose: “I want someone to come up to me and tell me how much better their life is because of what I’ve done,” he tells Myles Taylor of SMU News in this video.
Click the YouTube screen, or visit this link to watch the Global Student Entrepreneur Award video in a new window. 
> Read more about SMU’s Global Student Entrepreneur Award regional winners