Northampton Community College freshman Jona-than Khouly had an idea on how to create better diagnostic testing devices that he thought could make him a lot of money.

That's why he was at Startup Weekend in November at Lehigh University's Ben Franklin Techventures pitching his idea to the financiers, software engineers and manufacturers with the hope of forming a team, and emerging from the intensive three-day seminar with the $12,000 prize and a head start on a new business.

Khouly's idea didn't attract any interest from other participants. In the end, Khouly, who is from Antiqua, decided to join another team.

This team had coalesced around a biker from Sellersville's idea - building a stabilizer for helmet-mounted cameras such as the popular GoPro camera. Zachary Rambo's team did win second prize worth $5,935 in business services.

Khouly said in a recent interview that he is waiting to hear from Rambo's company, Steadfast, about any plans to continue with the idea.SKAFFL founder and CEO Rita Chesterton, last year's first place winner, was the keynote speaker for the event which attracted about 70 participants, 26 of whom pitched ideas.

"It's amazing when you see something from your head actually working," Chesterton said. Her team has been working since last year on an "app" or application for tablets to help teachers manage class assignments and make grading easier. It provides organization for students and progress reviews available to parents.

"It will be available at the App Store," said Chesterton, who is an IT director in a local school district and a former high school teacher.

Allentown Economic Development Corporation's Anthony Durante helped organize the event.

"We're providing the environment," Durante said. "It's up to the individual to figure out how to keep things going."

This was the second event that Durante has hosted; he is pretty sure he will host another next November.

While Durante was the host of the event, Rylan Sullivan from Tampa, Fla., was running the program.

He said Startup Weekend is a global organization that hosts events where entrepreneurs can meet co-founders, where they can validate their ideas and build on their ideas.

The idea is to learn the basics of founding startup businesses and launching successful ventures, according to Tampa Bay Startup Weekend website.

The site claims to have hosted 400 events in 100 countries around the world in 2011.

According to Startup Weekend, all "events follow the same basic model: anyone is welcome to pitch a startup idea and receive feedback from peers. Teams organically form around the top ideas as determined by popular vote."

Then participates spend the weekend doing "business model creation, coding, designing, and market validation."

The first-place winning team formed around Rosamond Deegan's idea to let the public directly fund medical research. Her company, ImPatient, would allow individuals with a particular interest in specific diseases to make small donations directly to medical research without going through established charities.

The judges awarded Deegan's team the first prize of $12,000 in business services.

Ben Cohen's idea for a wearable thermometer brought in the third-place prize of $5,225 in business services.

Ben Franklin Techventures on Research Drive on Lehigh University's mountain top campus is a new "state-of-the-art" incubator and business community for early-stage technology oriented companies," according information provided at the event.