Quinn King selected as top ten U.S. design student for national Whipsaw showcase

Two students working in SU design studio
Quinn King (left) and Alec Gillinder at their VPA design studio

Quinn King ’20 (VPA Industrial and Interaction Design) has been selected by Whipsaw for its first national senior showcase featuring the top 10 industrial design students in the U.S. from the class of 2020.  They will present their senior projects to a group of top industrial design professionals, firms and academics.  Participating universities nominated one senior project that stood out for its bold vision and originality. The works being featured in this event will give a sampling of what’s to come in the next generation of 2020s design.  King was nominated by the School of Design to represent Syracuse University for his work on a military grade wearable intravenous delivery system he developed for his startup, MedUX, a LaunchPad venture.

The esteemed group of panelists includes Whipsaw CEO Dan Harden, IDSA San Francisco Chapter President Basak Altan, IDEO Cofounder Mike Nuttall, Head of Global Customer Experience Design at Amazon Nasahn Sheppard, and Manta Product Development Co-Owner and VP of Design Betsy Goodrich.  The event is Thursday, May 21 from 5 – 7 p.m.

Whipsaw is a product design, user experience, and engineering consulting firm with studios in San Francisco and San Jose, California that creates solutions that connect with users on both rational and emotional levels. Since its founding in 1999, over 800 Whipsaw-designed products have shipped to market in many industries for startups to international corporations.

King co-founded MedUX with Alec Gillinder ’20 (VPA Industrial and Interaction Design) and are both LaunchPad Rubin Family Innovation Mentors.  In addition to being one of the highest performing ventures in the LaunchPad program these past two years, they were accomplished design students.  Now, at the conclusion of a demanding five-year degree program they recently graduated and are pursuing the prototype the developed through the Invent@SU program and turned into a startup venture at the LaunchPad. 

They have been widely recognized by the university for their accomplishments and featured in many Syracuse University publications.  Among their accomplishments as student entrepreneurs:

  • Winners of Invent@SU Competition
  • Winners of the Impact Prize Competition
  • Winners of the Panasci Business Plan Competition, Whitman School of Management
  • Winners of the Syracuse University ACC InVenture Prize Competition
  • Second place national winners of the ACC InVenture Prize national competition at NC State
  • Winners of the ‘Cuse Tank Competition
  • Winners of the Upstate NY Global Student Entrepreneurship Competition
  • Finalists in the nationals of the Global Student Entrepreneurship Competition
  • Winners of the Medical Device Challenge by the CNY Biotech Accelerator at Upstate Medical University
  • Participants in the Blackstone LaunchPad Techstars Propel Program
  • Selected as Rubin Family Innovation Mentors at the LaunchPad

Together, they built a product roadmap and business model, and worked diligently through the LaunchPad’s investment ready process, working with investors, strategic partners and customers.  They built a first-class team of advisors who are committed to helping them bring this to market.  They used their prize winnings as non-dilutive equity to finalize their designs, file two provisional patents, and a non-provisional patent, manufacture samples in partnership with an upstate company, hire a FDA consultant, and enter into conversations with distributors on a path to market.  They are actively engaged with conversations with European partners on how to enter the military market.