Soaring Eagle sophomore takes grand prize at statewide entrepreneurship competition

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Lana Chan created SoundSense, a device that is programmed to vibrate in response to certain sounds to serve as an alert to people who are Deaf or hard of hearing.

DRAPER — Juan Diego Catholic High School sophomore Lana Chan, 15, won the $10,000 grand prize at the 2025 Tim Draper High School Utah Entrepreneur Challenge, a statewide, student business competition at the University of Utah on March 1.

In the competition, high-school student entrepreneurs ages 14 to 18 focus on developing a compelling student business.

Lana had previously been exposed to the competition a few years ago when her older sister Erin, now a freshman at the University of British Columbia, entered the challenge. This year was Lana’s turn. Basing her product on a science fair project she had done in middle school, Lana developed SoundSense, a device that translates alarms such as loud noises, fire alarms, emergency alarms or public service announcements into vibrations; these serve as danger alerts to people who are Deaf or hard of hearing.

For the science fair project, “We were allowed to come up with something that has to do with engineering, so I started researching ideas of real-world problems that I could try and solve with an invention,” Lana said. “That’s when the problem of hearing-impaired individuals came up and I decided to look further into that for my project.”

For the entrepreneur challenge, Lana took the concept from her science-fair project and constructed a circuit board that was programmed to vibrate in response to certain sounds. The prototype device is housed in a 2-inch by 4-inch box but Lana hopes to eventually source smaller parts and develop a miniature device that could be attached to a watch or a necklace.

Along with developing their products, Lana and the other competitors pitched them and their business plans to a panel of judges.

“I wasn’t really expecting to win,” Lana said, but “I’m really excited and happy, because winning this money means I can put it into getting a patent and further developing it into something that is something that would be ready to put on the market.”

At the competition, two different judges gave Lana valuable feedback on her product; one in particular offered to help connect her with people who could help get SoundSense patented, she said.

Lana hopes to study computer science or engineering in college to continue to develop these skills and create more devices like SoundSense, she said.

The Tim Draper High School Utah Entrepreneur Challenge is hosted by the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute, a division of the David Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah and sponsored by venture capitalist Tim Draper.