From left to right: Dylan Cantara, Christian Fall, and Logan Bento (Photo Courtesy of Christian Fall)
Staff Writer: Rena Danho
Email: rdanho@umassd.edu
The Corsair Idea Challenge was created by UMass Dartmouth to give students a chance to present their ideas in hopes of winning money to try and make their ideas a reality.
In the Fall of 2023, the Corsair Idea Challenge returned to UMassD, and many students competed against each other, but in the end, there was one winner.
The third-place winner(s) receives $200, the second-place winner(s) receives $300, and finally, the first-place winner(s) receives $500.
Christian Fall and Dylan Cantara swept the floor and took 1st place with Embargo. However, if winning first place wasn’t enough to impress you, students Logan Bento and again Christian Fall took second place with their product Cold Red.
I had the chance to interview Christian Fall and Dylan Cantara, the first palace winners, about their idea, Embargo.
Who are you?
Fall: “My name is Christian Fall. I’m an Electrical Engineering major in the Honors College on a pre-med track. I’m a published author in the Engineering Encyclopedia and co-owner of Embargo and Cold Red.”
Canntara: “My name is Dylan Cantara, and I am a Finance major at UMass Dartmouth. I’m also the Vice President of DECA at UMass Dartmouth and co-founder of Embargo.”
What is Embargo?
Cantara: “Embargo Media is a service, product, and experience that makes a healthy lifestyle not feel like a chore.”
Fall: “We have a basketball league, football league, clothing brand, and a podcast. We use those facets to facilitate healthy living. Iron sharpens iron, and those facets will sharpen your life.”
How did Embargo begin?
Cantara: “Embargo began as a clothing brand my freshman year of high school and then became bigger through the Embargo League that started in 2021.”
Has the Corsair Idea Challenge helped?
Fall: “We just scored an office in the Co-Creative Center. The owner of the Co-Creative Center was one of the judges, so that helped. We won money via scholarships, and their article about us helped with publicity. Going through the Corsair Idea Challenge process, putting in the proposal, and building the presentation helped us because it forced us to think about where we’re going and what we have.”
Cantara: “Corsair Idea was extremely important because it made us take this more seriously and helped us realize we have something special here.”
Were you expecting to get first place?
Fall: “The funny thing is I got the email for Cold Red way before I got the one for Embargo, so I didn’t even think we qualified at first. Eventually, we did get it for Embargo. We were probably one of the last ones to qualify. Dylan and I went into this saying either we can knock the socks off the judges and really blow them away with this and take it all home, or we are probably looking at something like last place. So we chose the former.”
How can people get involved?
Cantara: “People can get involved by following our Instagram and giving suggestions or ideas. We are open-minded and love hearing what people want to say.”
Fall: “You can message us on Instagram at Embargo League, Embargo Media, and Embargo Clothing.”
Where do you see Embargo in five years?
Fall: “Well, I mean growing at whatever rate we can, preferably the highest rate. I don’t know about five years, but in ten years we want to have a big sports complex. We do not want just a sports complex where you can play sports, but we want to integrate decentralized science like cryotherapy stations and red light stations to boost healing properties. The decentralized scientific sphere is profit-driven. So centralized medicine is profit-driven, and much of the truth lies outside the profit margins people are pushing. I want to incorporate that into it, making it a large sports and healing complex.”
I also interviewed Christian about his second-place winning idea, Cold Red, with his co-owner Logan Bento.
What is Cold Red?
Fall: “Cold Red is a piece of technology that combines two known healing technologies, red light and cold therapy. It combines cold temperature and red light technology to boost healing properties.”
How did the Corsair Idea Challenge help with Cold Red?
Fall: “Honestly, it’s the same thing, to be honest. Going through the Idea Challenge and doing everything they wanted forced us to think about the company, what we want to do, and where we want to go.”
How did you come up with Cold Red?
Fall: “So Logan owns a red light company, and I watched this guy Jack Kruse talk about decentralized science. We both know that there are massive benefits to red light. We knew there were two main types of short-term and long-term healing and pain relief technology. We decided to combine them.”
Where do you see Cold Red in five years?
Fall: “Hopefully, implementing it somewhere with a seller. We want to start distributing it to people.”
Although the competition was rough, these two ideas came out on top of the Corsair Idea Challenge and claimed first and second place. Who knows, maybe in a year from now, these names will be two of the next big things.