UNH’s ECenter Inspires the Next Generation of Entrepreneurs
Growing up with congenital heart defects, Kristina Logan ’28 knew how difficult it was for her family to find accurate, easy-to-understand medical information.
Born with a heart that has three chambers instead of four, Logan underwent multiple surgeries and lives with a compromised immune system — experiences that inspired her to create a medical literacy platform to help families better navigate chronic conditions.
“The platform gives parents access to resources like top hospitals, clinical trials, and research, while also breaking down complex topics for children through age-appropriate cartoons,” says Logan, who is interested in computer science. “The cartoons would cover three areas: how their bodies work and how their condition affects them, the emotional challenges of living with a chronic illness, and helping them understand the medical system.”
With support from the UNH Entrepreneurship Center (ECenter), Logan’s idea is taking shape. An ECenter Summer Seed Grant enabled her to build an early prototype of her platform — a modular design adaptable to different medical conditions.
Through mentoring, networking, workshops, competitions, and grant and internship opportunities, the ECenter gives students numerous ways to turn their concepts into ventures.
“I came in with a fragmented idea of something I might be interested in, but once I joined my first competition and started meeting other students with the same drive to create and add value, I was hooked,” Logan says. “The ECenter has been instrumental in helping me connect with like-minded people and refine a fuzzy idea into something crystal clear.”
Kristina Logan
The UNH ECenter is giving Shaun Devan ‘28 an opportunity to explore his passion for entrepreneurship and internet privacy.
He pitched his first major venture, Obscura AI — a privacy tool that protects digital identity from hidden trackers and data profiling — at the 2025 Holloway Competition. While the pitch earned his team a runner-up prize of $1,000, Devan ultimately decided to pivot.
His newest venture, Averi, an age verification platform, recently took home the $10,000 first-place prize at the inaugural Nanda Family Startup Catalyst Competition.
Averi uses zero-knowledge proofs — a type of cryptography that confirms someone’s age without revealing any of their personal data. Devan says his idea is a response to frustration with existing online age-verification methods that include constant ID uploads, unreliable data security, and facial scans.
“People don’t want to hand over their personal information to every website they visit,” Devan says. “If you have a valid digital ID, such as a government ID or one created online, we can convert that into a secure, locally stored zero-knowledge proof, which we call an age token. Then any website partnered with Averi can accept that token instantly, so users don’t have to re-upload their ID, scan their face, or go through those online verification headaches.”
Devan says this allows for a faster, safer way for users to access age-restricted content on sites like gaming platforms, online alcohol retailers, gambling apps, and dating services. Devan, who is studying computer science, says the Nanda Competition prize will help him advance his idea and is good preparation for the Holloway Competition and, potentially, the Baylor New Venture Competition.
“My next goal is to get the technology patented. I haven’t found any existing patents for using zero-knowledge proofs in age verification,” Devan says. “I also want to use the momentum to grow my team. I'm getting limited in what I can do both on the development and business side.”
The Nanda Family Startup Catalyst Competition was established through a gift from ECenter Entrepreneur-in-Residence Shiva Nanda and awards $10,000 to an innovation-based, high-growth student startup each fall. Designed as a smaller, early-year counterpart to the Holloway Prize Competition, it gives students a runway to refine their ideas, pitch to judges, and build momentum.
“The ECenter has been invaluable with all the resources it provides. Whether it be mentorship from the various experienced entrepreneurs, funding through competitions like the Nanda Competition, or the connections and networking it provides,” Devan says. “I know so many students who are entrepreneurial and have great ideas, but are scared to take that first leap. Once you get past that initial fear, you realize how much you can do with your idea — and how willing people are to help.”
Anyone Can Be an Entrepreneur
The ECenter is a collaborative space open to all students, regardless of major or experience level.
“Students meet each other, start talking and exchanging perspectives, and before long they’re teaming up for the Holloway Competition or other ventures,” says DJ Beasley, ECenter marketing and program manager. “Just recently, we saw a student who entered Holloway with someone he had never met before. He came up with an idea, pulled people together through ECenter programs, and suddenly, he had a team. That kind of connection happens here all the time.”
Free, donor-supported resources include drop-in office hours with Entrepreneurs-in-Residence, who provide one-on-one guidance, access to a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office representative for questions about intellectual property, and a student-run makerspace workshop outfitted with fabrication tools and equipment. Through the UNH StartupTree platform, students can also connect directly with mentors eager to support UNH entrepreneurs and learn about national business plan competitions.
Students develop their ideas through multiple ECenter-led competitions during the fall semester, including the Digital Health Ideathon, Idea and Innovation Jam, the Maurice Price for Innovation, and the Nanda Family Startup Catalyst Pitch Competition.
A Network of Success
The ECenter’s influence extends well beyond campus, as many homegrown businesses remain successful, with alumni returning to support the next generation of innovators.
"We built our business at the ECenter," says Jason Plant ’23, former CEO of HydroPhos Solutions, which captures phosphorus from wastewater and resells it to fertilizer producers. “Every competition we entered, we’d bring our written submissions or pitch decks to the staff for feedback, and each time we got a little better. With every round, every mentor, and every piece of advice, our pitch improved, and so did our business.”
HydroPhos won the Holloway Competition and multiple national competitions, including a first-place finish at E-Fest, the largest undergraduate entrepreneurship competition in the country.
“Learning how to pitch a business at the ECenter turned out to be one of the most transferable skills I’ve ever gained,” Plant says. “When you’re raising money, investors are really looking for two things: impact potential — how big or meaningful the opportunity can be, and feasibility — whether you can pull it off. That’s something I learned through those early competitions, and now I use it every day in investor meetings.”
After graduating, Plant founded Green Lighting Energy, a B Corp-certified solar installation company, and now serves as CFO of Sensorium Technological Laboratories, a semiconductor startup led by UNH alum and ECenter Hall of Fame member David Ferran ’78.
Plant continues to mentor student teams preparing for pitch competitions, including the 2025 Holloway Competition-winning team of Granite State Systems. Team members Brett Schultz ’25, Shea Garland ’27, and Rowan Baptista ’27 developed an energy-efficiency solution that uses sensor technology and machine learning to help cold-storage warehouses cut energy costs.
“All that hard work happened here,” says Garland, a finance major. “You could work anywhere on campus, but this place is different because you’re surrounded by people who inspire you.”
Baptista, a mechanical engineering major, says the experience reshaped how he thinks about his own potential. “I’d never done anything like this before,” he says. “It was all new to me, and now I feel like I’ve unlocked a whole new part of my brain that I can use moving forward — whether with this venture or the next.”
After winning Holloway, the team has continued using ECenter resources to refine its concept, pivoting from a hardware device to a software solution that integrates with existing energy management systems.
Building for the Future
This year, the ECenter officially joined the Peter T. Paul College of Business and Economics, further aligning it with UNH’s academic and entrepreneurial ecosystem.
“Having people with a business and entrepreneurial mindset helping to shape the vision for the center and the university has been really valuable,” says Belle Vukovich Kenoyer, ECenter associate director. “Before we joined Paul College, we already had a supportive ecosystem, but now we have people who can dedicate time to providing the structured visioning and strategic planning we’ve needed. I’m really excited about the possibilities ahead.”
For Logan, those possibilities are already taking shape. She plans to enter her medical literacy platform in upcoming competitions and eventually in Holloway.
“The whole reason I wanted to come to college was to learn skills I could apply to the startup world, or entrepreneurship in general,” Logan says. “Growing up with self-employed parents, I always knew I wanted to build something of my own. Being exposed to all the startup ventures at the ECenter has only strengthened that desire.