Northwestern Students Compete at MIT Clean Energy Prize 2011

On May 3rd Northwestern’s own S2E Solar was one of 25 semi-finalists in the MIT Clean Energy Prize competition. Five teams in five different categories competed to go on for the grand prize, which was awarded on May 9th. The competition was open to student teams from universities across the country.

The categories included Transportation, Clean Non-Renewables, Renewables, Energy Efficiency, and Deployment. S2E Solar, which makes high-efficiency, low-cost transparent conductors for thin film solar cells, competed against four other solar teams in the Renewables category. While the category was over saturated with solar-based technologies, there were plenty of interesting companies. The category winner, Ubiquitous Energy, has developed ultra-lightweight, ultra-flexible solar cells that can be deposited on paper or textiles.

Stand out teams in other categories included PK Clean, which can transform plastic waste into fuel, and the grand prize winner, CoolChip Technologies, which has developed a technology to address thermal management issues at computing and data centers.

The day consisted of a closed judging round, as well as a three hour poster showcase open to the public. The poster showcase gave teams the chance to speak with a wide variety of industry people, make contacts, and share their companies with the general public. A reception after the days events allowed teams and judges to mingle and network. The clean tech landscape in Boston is robust, and the event drew a large and enthusiastic crowd, making it fertile ground for entrepreneurs, investors, and those interested in the future of energy and clean tech innovation.

S2E Solar will go on to compete as a finalist on May 24th in Northwestern’s NUVC competition.

 

Northwestern Students Compete at 2011 Rice Business Plan Competition

The Rice Business Plan Competition (RBPC), one of the largest business plan competitions in the US, held its awards banquet on Saturday, April 16th, 2011. 700+ attended the banquet, where $1.3 Million in prizes was awarded to the winners of the competition. TNG Pharmaceuticals of the University of Louisville took the Grand Prize. The event marked the eleventh year of RBPC and was hosted by the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship and Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University.

Teams were able to compete in six categories: life sciences, information technology, energy, green tech, social ventures and other technologies. The competition process involved 15-minute business plan presentations, with the top six competitors vying for the grand prize valued at $642,000.

Northwestern sent two teams to the competition: Neuvel, which won $700 and got 2nd place in the Shark Tank Round- Flight 2, and San + CO, which won $500 and received 4th place in the Shark Tank Round – Flight 3.

 

Northwestern University Venture Challenge Semi-Finals

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Northwestern University Venture Challenge (NUVC) recently held its semi-finals on April 25^th.  NUVC, a student-run competition, serves as a platform for entrepreneurial students who want to participate in the experience of building a business idea from scratch. Ideas that are allowed to be submitted to the competition must fit into one of five functional tracks: Health Care and Biomedical Science Technologies, Energy and Sustainability, Information Technology, and Media/Journalism Social Enterprise Products and Services.  

Participants in the competition have access to early-stage investors and veteran entrepreneurs as well as faculty. The Semi-final round was the second of three rounds, during which the twenty-three teams that had passed round one were judged in two stages by a panel of VCs and entrepreneurs, by presenting a three minute elevator pitch and answering questions from the judges. The competition is fierce, and only six teams were chosen to move onto the final round, which will be held at the Entrepreneur@NU Conference on May 24^th. Here are the profiles of the six teams who are finalists:

AccuFlow Diagnostics

AccuFlow Diagnostics is a developer of rapid, low-cost and highly sensitive lateral flow assays for screening of high prevalence diseases at the point of patient care. CerviaDx represents AccuFlow’s entry into the $18.7B point-of-care healthcare market segment, utilizing a patented high-sensitivity assay to screen and stage cervical cancer lesions. CerviaDx technology delivers analytical detection comparable to large instrument-based diagnostics within 30 minutes at less than a tenth of the cost per test and without needing any capital equipment. AccuFlow has developed prototype devices for its platform technology and is now seeking funding for feasibility studies and pilot unit delivery.

Higher Realm Photonics

Using recent advances in nanoscience, Higher Realm Photonics has created an energy-efficient and compact version of the conventional ‘mask aligner’—one of the most crucial pieces of equipment used in manufacturing of nanoscale devices, such as light-emitting diodes (LEDs), microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), microprocessors, and many other technologies. Compared to conventional mask-aligners, the product is compact, low-cost, consumes far less electricity, and uses environmentally friendly materials. It has successfully been deployed at the Odom Laboratory at Northwestern University for 15 months and has been used for the production of >500 micro- and nanoscale devices, with feature sizes as low as 100 nm.

S2E Solar

S2E SolarTM makes “transparent conductor” solar cell components that enable solar energy to be lower cost than grid electricity.  The transparent conductor industry is approaching $10B, and the solar industry is currently $38B and rapidly increasing, providing substantial growth potential.  The foundational IP behind the company’s product, S2E Solar FilmTM, was developed at Northwestern University.  Founder Jon Servaites is finishing his PhD at Northwestern in Materials Science and Engineering, researching thin film solar cells in the Tobin Marks Group, where this foundational IP was invented.

 Functional Jewelry

In the United States, jewelry is a ~$50 billion per year, highly fragmented market. Recently, traditional jewelry business has been losing market share to unique, innovative jewelry products sold from smaller retail shops and online-only vendors. Separately, the scientific race to address climate change has led to the creation of a novel material type: crystals that can absorb greenhouse gases. Both beautiful and functional, these crystals are ideally suited as jewelry for the environmentally conscious.

TicketSnagger.com

TicketSnagger.com is a secondary market for event tickets that reverses the dynamic of other markets by allowing buyers to set prices at which they would be willing to buy tickets and allowing sellers to close deals by accepting offers and initiating the ticket transfer. The buyers would be committed to their offer prices so that when/if a seller accepts, that offered price will automatically be charged. This system will allow buyers to purchase tickets below face value and allows sellers to always be able to recoup the value of their tickets, creating a demand driven secondary market.

Present Bee

Present Bee alleviates gift-giving pains with a smart solution that helps users give better gifts with less stress and more social proof. Its platform provides users with access to the most personally relevant and popular gift ideas for anyone in their social network. Present Bee combines: (1) Algorithm-generated gift ideas to connect people to products they will love, (2) the ability to get gifting advice from friends and family, and (3) the option to purchase expensive gifts seamlessly as a group.