Red Bull Launchpad, a program for college innovators and entrepreneurs to elevate their ideas and concepts, announced on September 13th that Steven Dourmashkin, graduate student from the University of Colorado Boulder and the CEO and co-founder of Specdrums, was the winner of its 2017 program. As the winner, Specdrums receives a range of prizes that includes an all-expense paid trip to TechCrunch Disrupt SF, booth space in the Startup Alley section, two tickets to its VIP dinner, and networking opportunities with TechCrunch Disrupt influencers.
Using a series of app-connected rings to turn anything with color into a drum machine, Specdrums places music at the fingertips of its users. Dourmashkin talked about the victory in a press release, saying, “My entire team and I are so thrilled to win Red Bull Launchpad and thankful for the amazing opportunity to showcase Specdrums among some of the tech industry’s top innovators. Things have been moving very fast lately with the success of our Kickstarter campaign, and Red Bull is really taking that to the next level by setting us up to attend Disrupt.”
RedBull Launchpad invites college graduate and undergraduate students to submit 90 second videos of their product or business. This year’s Launchpad featured over 100 entries from colleges including Lehigh, Stanford, MIT, Harvard, and others judged by an expert multidisciplinary panel. Panelists included a TechCrunch journalist focused in AI and machine learning, John Mannes, Hyperloop One senior marketing manager Ryan Kelly, Techweek CEO Amanda Signorelli, AOL Tech director of operations Joey Hinson, and WeWork’s head of marketing, Chad Campbell.
