Startup company helping water sport athletes wins 2023 UH Venture Competition

A startup company helping water sport athletes grow their brand is the winner of the 2023 University of Hawaiʻi Venture Competition.

Motion Management, led by University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa students, won a prize package of more than $36,000.

Motion Management is a management firm that represents water sports athletes to propel their brands and careers with the intent to create impactful change in the athletic industry and Hawaiian community.

The team’s prize package includes $10,000 from title sponsor American Savings Bank, and more than $26,000 in in-kind prizes. Team members are University of Hawai‘i students Juliana Rogers, Joane Yu, Heather Jung, Richard Jegers and Devon Baldwin, and their coach is Masato Itoh of Brookfield Properties.

Motion Management was one of four finalist teams that presented to a group of judges at the University of Hawaiʻi Venture Competition’s final event held on May 6 at the American Savings Bank Campus branch.

Zingipop Sodaworks — a 100% locally-sourced craft soda company dedicated to supporting agriculture in Hawaiʻi — won the second-place prize, which includes $5,000 from Hawaiian Electric Industries and Hawaiian Electric and $20,800 in in-kind prizes.

The third place winner was LocaLinQs, which is a social and academic platform and one-stop-shop powered by crowdsourced information that is aggregated and combined with data from multiple websites and research (publications and dissertations) of faculty and students.

The Anywhere Squeegee — a compact, easily transportable tennis court squeegee that enables the consumer to remove rainwater from outdoor recreational courts, improving safety and the quality of the playing experience — won fourth place and a prize package.

These four teams reached the finals after beating out 40 other teams in earlier rounds of competition. Among the teams were representatives from three University of Hawai‘i campuses and more than 20 disciplines.