Entrepreneurs
Coworking entrepreneurs located at the Berks LaunchBox
Kiss UX
KissUX is pioneering an accessible prototyping application to turn the app design process into a scalable, repeatable and consistent experience for startup product teams, early stage UI/UX designers, and developers. The platform empowers users, regardless of their design experience and ability level, to transform app ideas into clickable prototypes quickly and efficiently. Recognizing the challenges in software development communication, founders Kuba Kerner and Vera Hempel, owners of “We Are Cactus Club,” a web design, digital marketing, and app development firm, plan to enhance efficiency in the application development process by introducing an easy-to-use wireframing and communications tool. Learn More: https://www.kissux.design/
Nurse Cheats
Nurse Cheats, LLC, founded in the wake of the Covid pandemic by hospice nurse, Brittany McClain and ER nurse, Sarah Hoffman, later joined by ICU nurse and social media expert, Emily Hussar, addresses the critical challenges faced by new nurses. An alarming 18% of new nurses leave the workforce in their first year on the job after minimal mentoring due to nursing shortages and a lack of clinical experience. Nurse Cheats offers indispensable tools for both new and veteran nurses. Their flagship product, “Badge Buddies,” are innovative, waterproof, and easy-to-clean attachments for nurses’ uniforms. These badge buddies provide immediate access to critical, evidence-based information, aiding nurses in delivering effective patient care. The company’s suite of resources is thoughtfully designed to ease the information overload that nurses often face, potentially saving lives in the process. Learn more: https://nursecheats.com/
The 4th Trimester MAHMEE
Maternal Advocates Helping Magnify Education & Empowerment
The 4th Trimester MAHMEE was founded by Talonda Rogers to provide maternity-care services, including advocacy, counseling, and education. They serve women: pregnant, postpartum, and those that have experienced pregnancy or infant loss – with a concentration on the postpartum period. Through research, programs, and direct support, they elevate the awareness of complications impacting historically-vulnerable communities and work to change the narrative and ensure the best care possible for all women and their families. Learn more: Facebook and brochure, and https://www.4tmahmee.org/
Aarogya Tech
Aarogya Tech is creating a digital health care companion medical device for home use to improve health care access and monitoring to delay the onset and progression of chronic diseases. They expect the shortage of family physicians to become a more challenging problem in the next decade and can help this problem with artificial intelligence (AI) and home monitoring. Their device collects your vitals daily, nudges you to take your medicine, and anything else the doctor ordered. When someone has been hospitalized it can track the released patient at home to decrease re-admission rates. The companion uses AI to view trends in data being collected and gives smart nudges for behavior changes that can help. Founders: Prashant Trivedi, MBA, Amit Gupta MS, Ajay Vikram Singh EE, MBA, and Lokendra Thakur, MD. Learn more: https://aarogyatech.com/
CarToCamp
CarToCamp designs and manufactures an adjustable sleeping platform for use in compact to mid-size SUVs. The sleeping platform ships to the customer’s door and can be assembled in minutes with no tools required. It is raised above the floor of the vehicle, making it possible to store and easily access the gear you adventure with.
The company was founded in 2020 by Nathan Bonslaver, Kevin Gulick, and Robby Miller, with the goal of making the idea of “van life” more accessible to everyone. Learn more: https://www.cartocamp.com/
Enigma Networkz, LLC
Enigma Networkz has developed a proprietary Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) product, Enigma Glass, a turnkey, cybersecurity, data analytics platform that ingests and analyzes source data from disparate systems and quickly transforms it into actionable intelligence. Founded by Penn State alumnus, Mark Viglione, the company received an investment from Ben Franklin Technology Partners and others to support sales, marketing, positioning for investment, and product development. Enigma Glass is currently in full release, helping many small to midsize companies. Learn more: https://enigmanetworkz.com/.
Mindful Roots Children
Mindful Roots Children provides school staff with the training necessary to teach elementary students a daily 10-minute program aimed at enhancing social and emotional learning. This program helps create peaceful learning environments and fosters connected classroom communities. The training equips teachers and staff with hands-on experience, a comprehensive instructor’s guide, and a video library, all emphasizing the importance of social and emotional learning. Educators gain the confidence to guide their students toward better emotional health and academic achievement. In this video, a principal and kindergarten teacher from Cornwall Terrace Elementary in the Wilson School District share how implementing the M.Y. Time Program has significantly improved the behavior of their Pre-K through 1st-grade students.
Founder, Karen Tripolitis, spent thirty years as an elementary classroom educator and thirteen years teaching mindfulness. Learn more: https://www.mindfulrootschildren.com/
Ocoa
Ocoa, formerly DN Organics, is a clean and affordable hair care brand, whose mission is to empower women to take control of their health by using a more natural alternative for all their hair care needs. They encourage women to spend less time perfecting their hair and more time enjoying life fearlessly natural.
Founded by sisters, Cory Dahlia Varona-Corniel and Nicol Varona Cancelmo, both Penn State Berks alumni, the hair care startup started shipping their first two products in the first quarter of 2021 and have grown in leaps and bounds since then, introducing two new products with a total rebranding, including bilingual packaging, in spring 2023. Learn more: https://ocoabeauty.com/
WarrantyClick & Recalls It All
This startup’s products provides a one-time single source sign-up for warranty registration and recall notification. WarrantyClick is the manufacturer site for accessing warranty registrations and Recalls It All is the consumer site for login and registering warranties and receiving recall notifications. The current warranty registration process reduces warranty registrations because it requires a unique registration for every product. This solution allows a consumer to input personal data one time and register all of their products.
This business was founded Tom Wentling and is in the prototype phase.
X-Vinci
Real-Time, Concealed Weapon Detection, protection and alerting system to save lives. Detection device can be worn on body with threats appearing as image in wearable glasses. Designed as a threat, analysis and recognition defense intelligence system that analyzes a decentralized array of structured or unstructured data sources to provide autonomous target and threat prioritization capabilities in a single, adaptable platform architecture.
Entrepreneurs Graduated from Coworking Status
GenHydro
GenHydro, a renewable green energy company, has developed a decentralized hydrogen unit capable of powering automobiles, homes, commercial spaces, and military applications. Founded by Eric Schraud a previous Penn State Berks student, GenHydro has a team of five to work on creation, implementation, project management and market research. https://genhydro.co/
Photo Credit: Blaine Shahan Lancaster News.
TakeCharge, Inc.
TakeCharge, Inc., was founded with the defined mission to create and provide the world’s most robust self-discovery software application for high school and college students. It is a cloud‐based, artificial intelligence application that modernizes the career journey. TakeCharge enhances the school’s capabilities to counsel their students, helps high‐education fill seats and reduce dropout rates, and provides a larger and more targeted talent pool to employers. TakeCharge will empower users to benefit from an avatar mentor that will learn key attributes of each person, coach them on opportunities tailored to their desires and capabilities, and expose them to opportunities they may never have otherwise been aware of. https://takecharge.ai/
Verde Mantis, LLC
Verde Mantis, LLC is the premier 3D printer manufacturer in Reading, PA. Years of working alongside 3D printers in manufacturing environments allowed them to understand the hurdles that prevent less technical folks from being able to utilize this ground breaking technology. Leveraging this understanding, Verde Mantis designed and built the Mantis, the worlds easiest-to-use 3D printer. Their mission is to enable students and professionals to embrace their creativity through manufacturing with the Mantis, where creating is as simple as just pressing print.
Founder Joseph Sinclair’s interest in additive manufacturing and 3D printing was sparked while at Penn State Berks where he started Joe’s Rapid Prototyping as a hobby that later became Solid Dynamics, LLC. After much R&D to make the 3D printing process the most intuitive, the Mantis has been shipping since 2020! Learn more at: https://mantis3dprinter.com/.
World Brand, Coasty, SYZY
World Brand, Coasty and SYZY are committed to creating convenient alternatives to singlue-use plastics. This business researches, develops, tests, manufactures, and distributes sustainable, on-the-go essentials. They added the ultralight, Tetra bag, made of high quality ripstop nylon constructed to carry all daily essentials when needed and disappear into a micro-size pouch for your pocket, keychain or purse when not in use. This was added to their already successful, incredibly strong, paper straw line. Their dye-free, biodegradable paper straw is not only great for the environment, but a superior upgrade to the current paper straws on the market in terms of both aesthetic and function.
World Brand was founded in 2018 by Shanna Henry and Petros Pappalas, both Reading, Pennsylvania natives. Bearing witness to the devastation and impact that plastic pollution is wreaking on the planet, they conceived the idea to create eco-friendly alternatives that are also enjoyable to use. Being raised in Reading, PA, Henry and Pappalas share a sense of pride in the history of their hometown and are inspired and devoted in helping to restore Reading’s longstanding foundation of manufacturing. Learn more at: https://www.worldbrandco.com/ https://syzyuniverse.com
