April 21, 2023

CGU Team Wins 2023 Kravis Concept Plan Competition

The three winners of Atlas Intelligence holding their prize cheque

Atlas Intelligence, a wellness software tool created by CGU students Bergsveinn Olafsson, Daniel Martin, and Augusto Gonzalez-Bonorino, won the 2023 Kravis Concept Plan Competition. The event is hosted annually by the Drucker School of Management and is open to students and alumni of the Claremont Colleges, offering up to $10,000 in cash prizes. The award is designed to provide budding entrepreneurs with the resources and recognition necessary to take their startup to the next level.

Olafsson and Martin, both PhD students in positive organizational psychology, were inspired to enter the Kravis competition as soon as they heard about it. The duo had an idea for a well-being tool and reached out to Gonzalez-Bonorino, a PhD student in economics, because of his expertise in AI, machine learning, and economics.

“I said, ‘You guys want to increase flourishing in the world, and I like to build things. We should do something amazing together.’ We wanted to use our collective expertise and collaborate in a transdisciplinary manner to build something that can really affect the world,” Olafsson recounted. Together, they saw the Kravis competition as an opportunity to gain mentorship, funding, and networking opportunities that could help them turn their business idea into a reality.

With help from their advisor, Professor Stewart Donaldson, the trio had already learned about PERMA4, a holistic framework for work-related well-being that can help predict life satisfaction, so they sought to put the model to work. “After deciding on our idea, we worked really hard on making a concrete business plan with assistance from Drucker faculty by identifying the potential economic and well-being benefits of Atlas Intelligence,” Olafsson said.

Atlas Intelligence’s tool is designed to help people navigate the hardships of the last few years by analyzing survey data and providing insights into how to increase well-being. The team’s experience and coursework at CGU helped guide their project, which used evidence-based tools to increase well-being. The team members felt that they had a responsibility to bring those tools to people, and building a human-centered AI company was the perfect way to do it.

Winning the Kravis Award was a huge accomplishment for the team. “Although we’d decided to keep working on the tool and make it a reality independently of the result, we can’t deny that getting some validation that Atlas Intelligence could be something that the world needs is a good feeling,” Olafsson said.

The three winners with two competition judges holding their prize cheque — From left to right: Drucker Dean Dave Sprott, CGU students Danniel Martin, Bergsveinn Olafsson, and Augusto Gonzalez-Bonorino, and Kravis Competition judge Taj Ahmad Eldridge.

They continue to meet and discuss next steps. “We want to develop a great team around us and launch the tool within the next few months,” Olafsson said. “The part that excites us most is getting people on our platform and keep developing the tool so it can support them the best in their own journey toward a better future, life, and world.”