Left to right: Xavier Gonzalez, CEO of eMerge Americas; TSOLife Founder David Sawyer; TSOLife Chief Operations Officer Stella Parris; TSOLife Director of Marketing Diana Dupre; and Rhys Williams, Associate Vice President, Division of Research, Florida Atlantic University, and eMerge Americas’ Content Advisory Board member.
DeLand / Miami, Fla. – The Story of Life (TSOLife), the online platform for documenting life stories and preserving legacies for future generations, was recently awarded first place in the eMERGEAmericas 2017 University StartUp Competition in Miami.
TSOLife previously placed first in Volusia County’s Cairns Foundation Innovation Challenge and a membership in the Volusia County-UCF Business Incubation Program helped advance the company further to commercialization.
eMERGE Americas 2017 drew over 13,000 attendees in June from around the globe. The business technology conference is hosted at the Miami Convention Center where entrepreneurs, investors and technology enthusiasts gather to network and discover the latest technology trends on the EXPO floor. Keynote speakers included Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and personal finance expert/ television host Suze Orman.
125 startups gathered to compete and TSOLife – presented by the team of David Sawyer, Stella Parris and Diana Dupre of Stetson University in DeLand – was chosen as the winner in its category by a panel of international judges.
Sawyer founded TSOLife shortly after the passing of his grandmother when he realized her life stories were never preserved in a way that his children and other family members could ever hear. The innovative online platform houses life stories and provides a personalized documentary service to capture precious life events and stories in a 15-minute compelling and unique film.
About the UCF Business Incubation Program The University of Central Florida Business Incubation Program is a community resource that provides early-stage companies with the tools, training and infrastructure to become financially stable, high growth/impact enterprises. Since 1999, this award-winning program has helped over 390 local startup companies reach their potential faster by providing vital business development resources.
With seven facilities throughout the region, the UCF Business Incubation Program is an economic development partnership between the University of Central Florida, the Corridor, Orange, Osceola, Seminole and Volusia Counties, and the cities of Apopka, Kissimmee, Orlando and Winter Springs. For the 2014/15 and 2015/16 fiscal years, the activities of these participating firms have helped to sustain more than 4,710 local jobs and have had a cumulative impact of over $725 million on regional GDP and over $1.3 billion on regional sales. During the same period, the program has returned $7.41 in state and local taxes for every $1.00 invested in the program. For more information, visitwww.incubator.ucf.edu.
