Liang Competes as Finalist in Innovation Challenge
Content
Tristan Liang, a senior Electrical Engineering major, is one of four finalists participating in tonight's Innovation Challenge at 5:00 in Old Chapel. Held each spring, the Innovation Challenge is the Berthiaume Center for Entrepreneurship's premier pitch event in which students compete for the chance to win up to $65,000 in equity-free funding to kickstart their business idea.
Liang's venture is called Doberman, which is "a startup that develops consumer-grade, self-charging, autonomous surveillance drones. These can be configured through a mobile app and deployed anywhere, offering an economical alternative to traditional security patrols." His teammate is Evan Kao, a computer science student at the National Chengchi University in Taiwan.
Regarding his motivation for founding the business, Tristan shared: "I observed current self-charging surveillance drone products have complex features like self-mapping that drive up the cost, but it is hard for the general public to learn to use these features. This realization led me to consider how security cameras gained widespread adoption due to their user-friendly design rather than their technological sophistication. Motivated by this, my focus is streamlining the functionality of these drones for surveillance purposes, making sure they are easy and straightforward for everyone to utilize."
In addition to his entrepreneurial pursuits, Liang works as an undergraduate researcher for the Paros Center for Atmospheric Research, which leads research to improve the nation’s ability to forecast, plan for, and respond to shifting climate. He helped design and build a Paros box, a sensor that measures infrasound signatures that originate from starting and landing aircraft.
(May 2024)