A team of students from the Tickle College of Engineering finished second in the Graves Business Plan Competition. The team of three seniors— electrical engineering majors Makenzie Swicegood and Alex Weber with chemical engineering major Brad Bennett—worked on a new smartphone application to help locate lost pets named BackDoor.

“I have always had a passion for helping animals,” said Swicegood. “Three years ago, I started noticing that the most common problem in reuniting lost pets with their families is the hassle associated with taking a stray pet to a shelter.”

The goal of the application is to ease the process by combining existing pet chips with a social media-style platform giving smartphone users the ability to scan and connect lost pets to their owners.

Read about the competition »