Edquity, a Charlotte-based startup selling a first of its kind college financial planning and management app for high school and college students, won the Startup Showcase at the NCTA State of Technology event in Durham Friday. It won the audience vote over five other finalists.

The company will receive a $5,000 package of services and other rewards from the Showcase sponsor, tierpoint.

Launched in March from a Fintech accelerator in Charlotte, Edquity sells its app to institutions such as high schools and school districts which then make it available to students.

The app is aimed at helping students chose options that will help them avoid being in the 50 percent of college students who drop out, many for financial reasons or among the 29 percent who default on their college loans.

It alerts students to potential problems such as an institution’s drop out rate, or the amount of money their degree may enable them to earn vs. the amount they have to borrow.

The company launched its app in March and already has signed five high schools and 15 district schools. It is raising a seed round.

The other finalists competing in the six-minute presentations were:

A2Z Technology Solutions

Kernersville-based A2Z\sells an a mobile app that lets users quickly and easily navigate business phone menus. It lets businesses provide a more positive customer experience.

The app reduces call lengths and saves on phone charges

Real-time analytics provide real-time customer data to businesses using it. Users do not have to install software and the company offers free trials.

Brilliant Sole

Brilliant Solebased in Wilmington, enables virtual-reality and videogame users to control their movements on screen with their feet. Its mobile app captures sensor data from sensor embedded footwear, which transmits the data to the screen.

Founder and CEO Jeff Guard, said the technology lets a user become a video game character and be transported into an event or environment he’s trying to learn about.

Guard said the technology solves several problems. It eliminates the sensation of teleportation used for moving from place to place that breaks the user sense of immersion and continuity. And it permits the user to control a full range of locomotion sitting down and facing forward in a small space.

Guard said the company hopes to make the footwear for $25 a unit when they’re manufactured at scale.

GlanceAI

Raleigh-based GlanceAI is building a web app to cut the time companies spend screening job applicants and also reduce hiring bias.

The system is powered by machine learning algorithms that adapt to a customer’s own hiring data from.

The company bills its app as a “recruiting health check.”

A Raleigh Innovator winner, it is backed by Citrix, and HQ Raleigh.

The company says one customer using the app had 2.5 times the number of candidates; five times the usual diversity, all in half the time.

Roundtable Analytics

Research Triangle-based Roundtable Analytics uses predictive modeling technology to allow emergency room managers to create simulations of their department operations and consider alternative scenarios.

The company has received two National Science Foundation grants and raised a round of private equity since its founding two years ago.

Currently, emergency room departments take from 20 to 220 minutes to get a patient from the door to the provider and 259-590 minutes to get them from the door to exit. The government estimates that 150,000,000 people will visit emergency departments this year.

Roundtable calls its data-based simulation technology an emergency department’s “strategy lab.” It allows them to simulate changes based on electronic data records rather than trial and error.

The company has R&D operations in Florida and accounting in Seattle, but headquarters in the RTP.

Vijilent

Vijilent uses AI and social media profiles to provide lawyers with insights on jurors, witnesses, and even judges.

It’s also fast and generally provides results in about 30 seconds. It grabs words from social media posts and other web sources to provide a portrait that includes a sentiment and emotional tone analysis.

The company sees a huge market. Law firms spend $1.5 billion a year on legal analytics and the market is growing at 25 percent a year.

The company plans to partner with legal practice management software vendors.

You can try it free at the company web site.