Startups Click at App-Making Contest

A device that monitors the workout routines of physical therapy patients won $10,000 in funding at Startup Weekend Ventura County. The event took place March 11 to 13 at Rancho Campana High School in Camarillo and brought together programmers, application designers and entrepreneurs who had 54 hours to create a connected application for use in health care or agriculture. RepWatch was the overall winner. It is a device that monitors physical therapy patients’ workouts and makes it easier for therapists to adjust their routines. Other winners were Bye Bye Birdie, a combination of sensor technology and robotic vehicles to deter birds from tampering with crops, and Veggie Bot, a sensor-enabled robot that could be packaged with every shipment of fresh produce to monitor its condition. It was not disclosed whether the other winners were awarded prizes. Semtech Corp. in Camarillo was the technology sponsor of the event. Semtech Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Alberto Guerra, one of the judges in the competition, said it was great working an event that promotes technology and the use of local expertise to solve problems. “It was exciting seeing some great ideas come to fruition over the weekend, especially those that used our (long range) wireless (radio frequency) technology,” Guerra said in a prepared statement. The Camarillo Chamber of Commerce and St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Oxnard organized the weekend event.