Andre Sandoval ’16 remembers the day he took the MCAT. After finishing his exam, Sandoval walked out of the testing center and sat down on the curb. He felt directionless. Uninspired. He questioned whether or not he truly wanted to pursue medical school and continue as a biochemistry major. That day in the parking lot, something clicked for Sandoval.
Taking a semester off from Trinity, Sandoval contemplated experiences that had made him happy and fulfilled. He thought about his time with 3 Day Startup (3DS) San Antonio and joined the team at Biovideo, a company that documents the first few days of a child’s life on camera. The opportunity to create applications for a real-life startup reignited Sandoval’s entrepreneurial passion, and he changed his major to business administration with a concentration in marketing and an entrepreneurship minor.
Inspired by 3DS, a weekend entrepreneurial boot camp for college students, Sandoval decided to bring the program to his native Ecuador. In 2014, Sandoval launched 3DS Quito, with more than 50 participants in the initial program. Graduates include the Cuestionarix team, which Sandoval compares as the Princeton Review of Latin America. Growing off the success of the pilot 3DS in Ecuador’s capital city, Sandoval helped bring that “ecosystem of entrepreneurship” to Central America with 3DS Antigua in Guatemala. As with 3DS events in the United States, participants are taught how to craft a business model, conduct market research, pitch their idea to investors, and more – all in a three-day span.
“My experiences with 3DS opened my eyes and allowed me to completely switch my career,” Sandoval says. “I want other people to experience that, because the potential in Latin and Central America for entrepreneurship is huge.”
Sandoval and his team built on their success to produce 3DS Quito in 2015, adding 3DS Cuenca and 3DS Guayaquil, with further plans to initiate 3DS Buenos Aires and 3DS Brasília. He says that one of the most beautiful things about 3DS is that the organization does not charge any fees. Sandoval believes that economic problems should never be a factor for someone to participate, adding that some of the most humble entrepreneurs are often the most successful.
Additionally, Sandoval and business partner Jeremy Kearney have collaborated with Goodwill San Antonio to launch Catapult Weekend, a fast-paced entrepreneurship program similar to 3DS that caters to the community Goodwill serves. Sandoval called the inaugural program “high-impact,” with 38 participants who primarily created social innovation projects. There are plans to expand Catapult Weekend to better serve the military population of San Antonio.
Active in the San Antonio tech block scene, Sandoval is a member of Geekdom, a collaborative that aggregates local entrepreneurs, developers, marketers, creative professionals, and others. He says that a steadily growing San Antonio startup community has enabled him to build a “network of great leaders,” mentors that he relies on for advice. One of Sandoval’s most recent projects is called Cloud Therapy, a smartphone app that utilizes artificial intelligence to provide medical counsel to users.
“This application answers medical questions, where the more you ask the better it learns,” Sandoval says. “It understands natural language, just like you and I talk, and translates Spanish and other languages as well.”
Filtering information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institute of Health, and the Mayo Clinic, Cloud Therapy employs Watson technology developed by IBM. Sandoval is motivated by a common struggle faced by many Latino families, where an inability to navigate the health care system due to language barriers leads to astronomical medical bills, often for an illness that could be solved at home. Cloud Therapy uses speech-to-text application program interface (API) from AT&T, so that users can dictate symptoms to their phones without having to type. Sandoval and his team have launched the app in Ecuador, where they are poised to sign a contract with IBM.
“My main goal is to help low income people,” Sandoval says. “I got a chance to hear Pope Francis when he came to the U.S. and he said that one of the biggest things we can do is to take care of humanity. So for me, it doesn’t really matter if I make millions or not. The idea here is personalized medicine where you are not a number.”
As Sandoval finishes his final semester, he says that although it took him longer to graduate from Trinity than originally planned, switching his major was probably the best decision of his life. A fount of excitement about his endeavors, Sandoval says that entrepreneurship has taught him that although you may “eat dirt” 90 percent of the time, it is the 10 percent of success that makes everything worthwhile.
“I love being involved, working on an application and being the person who makes changes to it and influences and institutes the vision,” Sandoval says. “Even when you fail, it does not matter, because in the end, it’s a learning experience.”
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