With a boxy headset strapped snugly around his head and a fierce focus in his gaze, Shawn Gaetano navigates the 20th floor of a building. Slowly, he inches his way to pick up a soccer ball on a ramp that resembles a diving board, extending out from a window. Below him are skyscrapers and bustling city traffic. Soon enough, he carefully scrambles back into the building, bringing the soccer ball to the dog inside.

Sounds unreal? That’s because it is.

Solace Vision was born out of a simple idea: using virtual reality to help people overcome phobias. Thus far, Shawn has been testing the concept by simulating the fear-of-heights environment described above. After consulting with medical professionals, Shawn designed his program to offer incremental exposure (e.g. a ramp on the 5th floor, 10th floor, 15th floor, etc.), which acclimates users into comfortably facing their fears.

Shawn is an Information Management and Technology major with a concentration in Web Design and Management at Syracuse University’s iSchool. An innovative thinker, Shawn’s goal is to use emerging tech for good.

“Emerging technology creates problems in and of itself. I want to make it problem-less,” he says.

Using Unreal Engine, which offers a free and friendly user interface, Shawn can develop VR environments with minimal coding. Although in an ideal world he would pursue a B2B business model by selling products of Solace Vision to medical professionals, he will instead offer his programs directly to consumers through accessible downloads online.

The summer of 2020, Shawn won $500 in Syracuse University’s SummerStart Accelerator hosted by Blackstone LaunchPad and Techstars, allowing him to take Solace Vision to the next level.

Currently, Shawn is seeking out doctors, therapists, and psychiatrists to recruit to his team. He hopes that Solace Vision can offer an opportunity for medical professionals to connect with patients real-time and guide them through the process of overcoming their phobias. He is also working with clinicians to ensure that his designs adhere to medical standards before developing his next environment.

Shawn has also recently recruited Alec O’Del, a partner he met through the LaunchPad’s SummerStart Accelerator, who is knowledgeable in business development to help scale Solace Vision. Shawn is looking to hire more developers skilled in VR development in the future as well.

“It is helpful to work with a team who knows a lot more than I do,” Shawn admits. He stresses that in building this team, it’s important that people’s values align with their purpose and that their focus is on the mission rather than making money.

Shawn has already beta tested Solace Vision on over 100 patients, receiving an overwhelming flood of positive feedback.

A moment that stands out to him is a user who was crawling along the floor to cross the virtual plank. On her way back, she stood and reached for a virtual wall to steady herself against. Because there was no real wall actually behind her, the woman fell over. It was a lighthearted, humorous moment that demonstrated how effectively immersive the environment truly was.

Despite the fantastic reactions, Shawn did also receive constructive criticism on minor alterations — like the positioning of the ball or the presence of a dog, which may also be a phobia — and he uses this feedback to continue making his product better.

Designs like this will revolutionize the intersection of medicine and technology. Whereas VR used to be focused on gaming, innovators are now exploring new uses like testing business products or treating PTSD.

That said, it is still difficult to make strides to promote alternative treatments when traditional medicine has centuries of established history.

“Therapy is an incredibly hard industry to break into,” Shawn explains.

But Shawn is not new to the trial and errors of entrepreneurial ventures. “Part of being an entrepreneur is taking failures and learning from them,” he says.

He hopes to build a business he can scale to deploy his VR treatments to as many people who need it.

Beyond Solace Vision, Shawn is the director of NEXIS, a student technology lab at Syracuse University. He strives to propel the lab forward to enact the strategic vision of building a network of NEXIS-like labs across colleges around the country.

When looking which students to bring into the lab for projects, Shawn says NEXIS does not even touch resumes. “We just look for people who are passionate about tech. It’s a blessing to work with so many innovative people.”

Shawn defines innovation as not only outside-the-box thinking but also applying new uses to existing ideas. He poses the question, “Someone’s already created the wheel… But how can you make it better?”

Coming from a background as a first-generation college student from a small high school, Shawn didn’t have access to the technology he does now. He uses this perspective to motivate and drive him forward to do what he never thought to be within his reach.

The best part of being an innovator, he notes, is that “you get these new ideas… and you can actually execute them.” This execution is what Shawn is doing now.

Although Shawn is graduating this semester with a job lined up in Cleveland, his goal is to transform Solace Vision into a business he can rely on and expand its applications to encompass more mental health treatments beyond phobias. After working his 9-5, Shawn will be on the clock at 5:01 to keep working at Solace Vision each night.

“Be relentless. If you have a crazy idea, just go for it. The worst that can happen is you fail and learn.”

Shawn concludes with a final point for us to ponder: “All it takes is one yes to completely change your life. If you give up, you won’t know what your idea could have become.”

To read more about Solace Vision, visit the company website and follow the company on LinkedIn. Shawn Gaetano is always updating his LinkedIn as well.

Story by Sasha Temerte ’23, LaunchPad Orange Ambassador; photo supplied

Chizoba Anyaoha sits on a beach in Sydney, Australia letting his eyes drift across the figures wandering by the shore. His observant eyes lock with those of a woman who seems to be traveling alone. For a moment, he feels that he has stumbled upon serendipity — an opportunity to connect with a solo traveler like him — before the woman turns and walks in the opposite direction.

In this moment, TravSolo was born.

“There has to be a better way,” Chizoba thought.

Featured on Forbes and a myriad of travel publications, TravSolo is an app for solo travelers that streamlines the process of creating an itinerary, allows fellow solo travelers to meet, establishes safety precautions, and provides travelers with an opportunity to share their stories.

Chizoba, who has spent his life traveling between New York City and West Africa, was always a man who paved his own path instead of allowing himself to be pushed from place to place at the will of others.

At Syracuse University, Chizoba pursued a major in psychology with a minor in economics through the College of Arts and Sciences in hopes of fine-tuning the skills necessary to develop a business that meets human needs.

“I’m a builder,” he says, in reference to his relentless drive to create.

When he spent a semester abroad in Florence and explored nearby cities and countries independently, he later admitted he had solo traveled without even realizing it. After falling in love with the adrenaline of seeing the world beyond what he knows, Chizoba continued to pursue the meaning of what it truly means to live. He also learned that humanity shares more commonalities than differences, and it is especially vital in an increasingly diverse and racially charged nation to engage in cultural immersion to expand our global perspective.

A calculated risk-taker, Chizoba explains that it is important to be “comfortable with being uncomfortable.” He describes solo travel as an addicting experience and an opportunity to tell a worthwhile story. The problem, however, is that such stories are diminished by those who could not experience them themselves. TravSolo aims to solve this by allowing travelers to share their story in real time.

He hopes that this will inspire others to think, “If he or she did it, maybe I can too.”

This format aims to remove the distraction of editing for social media as well, shifting the focus to be on the trip itself. The app’s structure is also why TravSolo makes it easier for travelers to piece together an itinerary, rather than spending hours researching what to do.

Along Chizoba’s journey to humanize technology to make it more accessible, he acknowledged that not everything will always go as planned and that there is no one way of doing something right.

“There is no such thing as a perfect product — there is always something to improve because people’s needs change. Cities change. Travel changes.”

Looking forward, Chizoba plans to soon offer a subscription service within his app that will allow unlimited creation of drag-and-drop itineraries or one-time fees for short-term itineraries. Beyond this, he intends to expand his app to adapt to situations like COVID-19 by introducing travel itineraries related to road trips, hiking, and camping. He will also offer better connectivity for travelers, more journaling features, and greater safety tools.

When developing his app, Chizoba built a team of mentors and team members. He stresses that “When you’re working alone, you move faster, but when you’re working with a team, you move better.”

In building his team, Chizoba looked for people whose vision aligns with his. “Passion is most important because skills can be learned,” he notes.

Chizoba explains that it is important for entrepreneurs to understand their ultimate vision and understand why they are pursuing it.

“Why you?” he asks in particular, challenging people to identify what drives them to innovate within their industry. “Whether your startup fails or succeeds is up to you because you’re the boss. You need to have the why. With it, you’ll never be able to cheat your passions.”

Chizoba found his “why,” and now, he hopes to continue to grow the business that makes him happy.

“Do what you love, and love what you do,” Chizoba says. “Live your life. Laugh when you can.”

Growing up, Chizoba didn’t have mentorship to chase the self-started lifestyle he desired. Now, he gives back by mentoring high school and college students in accelerator programs. He has been an active alumni member of Syracuse University’s Blackstone LaunchPad and Techstars and participated in the LaunchPad’s first SummerStartup Accelerator.  He also did a residency with the Antler accelerator program and was a startup mentor for the Diamond Challenge and CUNY startups. He especially hopes to provide opportunities for people of color to find a voice in the travel and tech industry.

“It’s very impactful to see someone like them who did it. It’s inspiring.”

As a result, he will even be serving as a judge for American Airline’s Black Enterprise BE Smart Hackathon for all 101 HBCU schools. 

Regardless of what background someone comes from, Chizoba urges people to enact their crazy ideas: “To be an entrepreneur, you need to be irrational enough to build something from thin air.” It is this determined, outside-the-box thinking that pushed him to persist despite mistakes.

Chizoba leaves us with a final, haunting food-for-thought: “Everyone dies twice — once, physically, and once, when people stop saying their name. What impact do you want to have on the world? What do you want to be remembered for?”

To follow Chizoba’s current and upcoming projects, connect with him on LinkedIn (make sure to include a note!) and feel free to follow TravSolo on Instagram.

Story by Sasha Temerte ’23, LaunchPad Orange Ambassador; photo supplied

Along a Vietnamese beach walks Claire Chevalier, stepping around piles of abandoned takeout boxes and water bottles. Knowing Styrofoam does not decompose at all — and the plastic won’t for many years to come — her mind pounds with distress.

In Cambodia, she runs her hand through the water, wondering why packaging pollution is still an issue. She thinks of the time she learned about a company that packages water in thin, edible, seaweed-based film that runners can just pop into their mouths during races. We already have the innovations to fix the problem, she realizes. Why don’t major companies use them?

Once, it is 6 a.m. By the shores of Lake Michigan, Claire sits in the sand, gazing at forgotten plastic straws and beer cans. She watches a man tying up the trash bags of bins scattered along the beach, and she asks if he would help her pick up the scattered trash still lying idle in the sand.

“90% of recycling goes to landfills anyway”, she notes. “So why do we spend so much time cleaning up if we can just prevent the problem first?”

This is precisely what Claire is aiming to tackle with Cuapa Monde Conservation (CMC).

Claire’s passion for environmental sustainability has always been core to who she is, having come from a family with similar values. While traveling through Southeast Asia, Claire was spurred to transform her passion into an action plan after encountering shocking amounts of plastic and Styrofoam waste.

In fact, this background of traveling has developed the outgoing, curious, and creative personality that defines Claire. Although her home base is in the suburbs of Chicago, Claire comes from a nomadic family: Her German mother was born in India and raised in the U.S. while her father is French. Claire studied abroad in Spain, visits France every summer, volunteered in Nicaragua, spent a gap year in Southeast Asia, and took another semester in Uruguay. In total, Claire has visited over 13 countries.

This global background taught Claire to be non-judgmental and approach everything with an open-minded attitude. She spent her childhood talking more with adults than peers, and through these more mature conversations, Claire learned a healthy argumentative spirit. Growing up, her parents also taught her to play devil’s advocate just to understand another side to every belief.

“Perspectives are multifaceted,” Claire says.

In Cambodia, when Claire’s program didn’t allow cell phones, she needed to communicate with people of a different background without knowing the language. This taught Claire that most problems are merely the result of miscommunication — an important realization in our increasing globalization.

Now, Claire is a freshman majoring in Marketing Management through the Martin J. Whitman School of Management with an intended double major in Environment, Sustainability, and Policy through Syracuse University’s College of Arts and Sciences. She hopes that learning to sell an idea will enable her to enact her dream into reality — in this case, her dream for CMC.

Cuapa Monde Conservation will be a consulting firm that connects existing companies to innovative research labs that create sustainable, zero-waste packaging. “Cuapa” represents Jucuapa Occidental of Matagalpa, Nicaragua, the first place Claire was immersed in a culture other than her own. “Monde” then signifies “world” in French. As a result, CMC is named in honor of the global background that has deeply influenced the development of her business idea.

“We are an American consumer society — that’s never going to go away.” The question just becomes how we end the production of packaging waste. That’s where CMC comes in.

CMC will help major companies — think beer, chip, and soda producers — to realize that sustainable packaging will both benefit the environment and save the companies money. Claire notes that companies focus only on immediate sales gains without acknowledging that long-term, sustainable packaging would minimize their costs. She also expects that in the future, governments will implement more regulations to tax companies for plastic use, and CMC can help the companies project and prepare for these changes.

Claire’s long-term vision for CMC is name recognition. She hopes that someday, large-brand companies we see in grocery stores will have a label: “CMC Certified.” Each label could have a color-code to indicate whether the packaging will decompose in five years, three years, one year, or less. Perhaps “CMC Certified” will also become a token of value that inspires consumers to spend a few extra cents, just as labels like “Organic” or “Vegan” do.

In endeavors like this, it is crucial to have support, so Claire emphasizes the importance of creating meaningful relationships.

“You can’t do anything alone,” she says.

Claire has just started working closely with Syracuse University’s Blackstone LaunchPad and Techstars to build her business roadmap and build the connections she needs.

Claire also stresses that to be an entrepreneur means to be “someone who not only has an idea but makes it happen.” She urges others to follow through with their ideas and pursue the passions that drive them.

“Anyone can do anything if they put their mind to it.” This mindset is precisely the driving force for Claire’s pursuit of Cuapa Monde Conservation.

She states with certainty, “This should exist, and I want it to exist.”

And therefore, it will exist.

If you are interested in contacting Claire Chevalier, she can be reached at cmcheval@syr.edu.

Story by Sasha Temerte ’23, LaunchPad Orange Ambassador; photo supplied