Grade 9 students Natasha Maniar and Kelsey Wu won first place at the DECA State Career Development Conference in March for a product they designed called CardioBand. “CardioBand is an innovative three-in-one personal medical and fitness device which will revolutionize the way people monitor their heart health,” said Maniar. The proposed device will function as an electrocardiogram, emergency alert and a fitness monitor. Utilizing a Velcro harness and an app, CardioBand would be able to detect irregular heartbeats and prevent deaths related to sudden cardiac failures.

The students drafted a five-page plan that includes a marketing and sales strategy. They also conducted a survey of potential customers to learn more about what features they would like, preferred colors, a possible price point and when they would be most likely to wear the device. 

Maniar and Wu recently had their plan reviewed by venture capitalists and financial analysts, and are happy with the feedback they received. “CardioBand is a huge step up,” said Alex Antebi of Connective Capital Management. “It leap-frogs the competition with its continuous monitoring and proactive notification system. I believe CardioBand is a best-in-class biometrics service.”

“We looked into FDA regulations and what similar companies in the wearables space, like Kardia and Qardio, had gone through to decide the time it would take us to introduce CardioBand in the market,” Maniar said, adding that research also has been done on target markets, creating “a more detailed and accurate analysis of each potential demographic of customers comparing it to other health wearable device companies such as Fitbit to defend our plan.”