Editor’s note: This is the second in a series of stories featuring the five finalists in the 12th annual Carroll Biz Challenge. The competition, which will conclude with a live finale at the Carroll Arts Center in Westminster Aug. 3, is run by the Carroll County Chamber of Commerce. For more about the chamber and this event, visit carrollbizchallenge.com.

According to its Eldersburg inventor, Celcy could become a standard appliance installed in kitchens of the future.

Maxwell Wieder, 34, of Eldersburg, is CEO and co-founder of Celcy Technologies, maker of the Celcy, an oven and freezer device that can be operated through a phone app so that frozen food can be cooked without the user present.

“Since the microwave, there has not truly been a product that has taken hold like it,” Wieder said. “Our goal is to be that next kitchen appliance that becomes the standard of being in your kitchen. That is our vision and that’s what we want to do; we want to become synonymous with every kitchen.”

Celcy, an oven that stores frozen food, can initiate cooking remotely with the push of a button in an app can be controlled with an app, button controls, or through a smart speaker. Celcy Technologies is one of five finalists in the 2023 Carroll Biz Challenge.

Celcy, an oven that stores frozen food, can initiate cooking remotely with the push of a button in an app can be controlled with an app, button controls, or through a smart speaker.

Celcy is one of five finalists selected to compete for prizes in the 12th annual Carroll Biz Challenge, run by the Carroll County Chamber of Commerce as a way to showcase local entrepreneurs and give them an opportunity to pitch their new business ideas. Finalists will compete for a $10,000 cash prize to help start their business as well as a number of smaller prizes.

The name Celcy is derived from the word Celsius, because the device preserves food at one temperature extreme and cooks it at another.

The 19-by-16-by-14-inch appliance can hold five frozen meals at once and is capable of convection, conduction, deep defrosting, air frying, boiling and baking. The Celcy app knows the cooking style and temperature that corresponds to each chef-crafted meal made for the device and can provide information on the food’s expiration date and nutrition.

Weider said the product is expected to sell for about $700, though the company is likely to offer the Celcy for less with a meal plan included.

“The hardest part was trying to narrow how are we going to market this to consumers,” Weider said, “because there’s so many different use cases.”

Inventing a new type of oven is an impressive feat, Carroll County Chamber of Commerce President Mike McMullin said.

“That’s what’s exciting about this,” McMullin said, “this is an invention. This guy made this invention. We don’t often get a lot of people that submit applications that have made something as complex as this. That’s what makes this extremely exciting and very unique.”

Wieder works as a government contractor for NASA and many of his friends are engineers who helped him conceive of and design Celcy. They also have roles in the company, which he started in 2018.

Weider said he he has found that users will take what Celcy can do and adapt it, coming up with their own ways to use the appliance. Some people hate cooking, others may not have time to cook every day, some people may simply want a hot meal waiting for them when they get home, he said. Celcy can lighten the burden for those responsible for preparing food for loved ones.

“Let’s face it, people are lazy,” McMullin said. “Whatever they can do to streamline anything in their life and save time, they’ll do it. That is what makes this such a cool thing.”

Weider said if he wins the Carroll Biz Challenge, he will invest the $10,000 grand prize in producing more Celcy units and marketing the company’s upcoming Kickstarter campaign in September.