By Harrison Diamond
What can you do in 90 seconds?
If you are Austin Cone and his team from ReaCh (Release a Child) Safety Systems you could give a winning pitch on a new design for a safer children’s car seat.
Thomas Langham, a junior majoring in mechanical engineering from Eutaw and Rebecca Paxton, a sophomore majoring in communicative disorders from Tuscaloosa were the other team members.
Cone and his team members from their group ReaCh Safety Systems won first place in AIME’s “Elevator Pitch Competition,” part of The University of Alabama Year of the Entrepreneur. The event consisted of a 90-second pitch to a group of judges and a five minute question-and-answer period.
ReaCh’s design was for a safer car seat for children. The design for all car seats has one release point near the child’s stomach. The design they drew up and built has an additional release point on the back of the seat that allows for quicker removal from a wrecked car.
“Our goal was to make it easier to get a child out of the car in case of a wreck,” Cone said, “There are times when current safety seats malfunction and it makes it extremely difficult to get the child out of the car.”
“The first time we did the pitch I was real nervous that we would go over the time limit,” said Cone an MBA student from Huntsville, “But when we qualified to the next round I knew we could do even better and we did.”
The second round was not without its obstacles. In addition to the change of judges from three professors to a panel of high school students, professors and entrepreneurs there was an unexpected obstacle that would challenge the group poise.
“Something really funny happened during the second round,” Cone said, “When we pulled the baby doll out of the car seat, its pants fell down and we had to deal with people laughing and we had to maintain composure.”
This competition seemed like a perfect fit for Cone who feels that entrepreneurship is something that makes America unique.
“Entrepreneurship separates us from the rest of the world,” he said, “It is difficult in some places to get started and in some countries it is nearly impossible for there to be entrepreneurs. That is what makes our country great.”
Cone knows that some people have a negative impression of venture capitalists as being greedy, but he insists that those images are far from true and that entrepreneurs are able to help communities a great deal.
“Entrepreneurs have a great impact on communities. They provide jobs that enable people to buy homes and prosper,” he said.
Cone says he has plans to take the CPA exam this summer and long-term plans of owning a holdings company.
“I feel that is a real way to contribute to my community by providing jobs,” he said.
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