Blue Startups, a venture accelerator that aims to stimulate economic growth in Hawaii, has chosen its third cohort of startup companies.

Blue Startups offers technology companies with global ambition a 13-week intensive mentorship and investment program. The eight companies selected for the program were chosen from more than 250 applicants.

Here is a description of the companies and links to their websites:

» Focus Opus helps small businesses and students increase productivity and improve their quality of life.app.myfocusbook.com

» Quic provides an all-in-one dashboard to manage, display, and search all media content with live webcast and insight features creating one complete profile accessible from any online device. www.quic.me

» Developing Critical Thinkers provides provisionally patented knowledge management and competency acceleration solutions. www.thinkalign­innovate.com

» Vantage Sports works with professionals in each sport to develop an "in-depth and flexible data set." www.cacvantage.com

» Juicies designs power solutions for mobile devices. www.juicies.com

» Ingollow is a community-driven discovery travel application focused on helping customers and businesses in a geographic area connect in real time. www.ingollow.com

» Culture is a one-stop website and app resource that connects users to the cultural events.

» Yuru is a mobile application for the iOS and Android platforms that allows people to ask and get instant advice. www.askYuru.com