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A recent estimate for the total global freshwater is 35,000,000 cubic kilometers. Sounds like a lot right? Not quite. Humans depend on freshwater to survive, but unfortunately it only accounts for 2.5% of the Earth’s total water volume. Geophysicists and climatologists maintain that changes in climate conditions and stresses on water supply from overconsumption of groundwater resources and population growth will bring 45% of the world’s population below the Basic Water Requirement (BWR) by 2050. Water supply is difficult to adjust because renewable freshwater sources such as rain and groundwater are highly variable with respect to meteorological and geographical factors. Currently, households and farmers are consuming freshwater at rates that are below the sustainable yield.

The scientific facts beg the fearsome question: will the world run out of water? Environmental entrepreneurs would like to think the answer is no. A University of Ottawa student’s desalination process to extract drinking water from seawater took the $10,000 top prize this week at the Eastern Ontario Technology Venture Challenge competition. Large-scale desalination typically requires large amounts of energy as well as specialized, expensive infrastructure, making it very costly compared to the use of fresh water from rivers or groundwater, but founder Mohammed Rasool Qtaishat (pictured right) claims that his technology is more efficient and cost effective than competing desalination technologies. His startup Water For All, has already obtained funding including $286,000 in from the Middle East Desalination Research Center in Oman. (more…)

We thought the DFJ Gotham $250k competition was huge, squashing the Forbes $100k and MIT $100k. Although a very niche competition, the Global Security Challenge offers $500,000 cash as a prize as well as mentorship from leading venture capitalist firms such as Siemens Venture Capital. Students are welcomed to enter since they are looking for innovators and new technologies from university labs (71% of security startups actually originate from universities). In general, they are looking for technologies that have potential to aid and increase the United State’s security. The “Crowded Places” category offers a $10,000 prize to protect citizens from terrorist threats and doesn’t require a product or prototype.

The competition is open for submissions. Check out the types of technologies they are looking for and visit their site for more information.

Target Technologies

We seek to uncover the creative capabilities of innovators in universities and infant companies that apply to public security needs. This includes software or hardware solutions that help (a) protect people, critical infrastructure, facilities and data/electronic systems against terrorist or other criminal attacks and natural disasters or (b) help governments, businesses and communities defend against, cope with or recover from such incidents.

Examples of our areas of interest are (but are not limited to) biometrics, detection sensors, network security, data storage, video surveillance, RFID, data-mining SW, biotechnologies, and search software.

Aaron Belsh of PhatDeals recently informed us of the winners of the UCSB Technology Management Program New Venture Competition. A total of $25,000 was distributed to five winners in different categories. Taking “Most Fundable Idea” and “Dow Materials Use” categories ($10,000 and $5,000, respectively) this year was Nitride Solutions, a startup developing products used for fabrication of ultraviolet LEDs. These LEDs are sold to companies needing to sterilize medical devices or doing biological detection. The team of student entrepreneurs is comprised of Troy Baker, who is doing postdoctoral work in materials engineering, and David Pricco, who is finishing an undergraduate degree in business economics.

The award for “Best Business Plan” ($4,000) went to Green Pieces, a modular green-home building company that purportedly reduces costs by 15 percent and construction waste by 40 percent while allowing a home to be built in half the normal time. The company has already obtained $500K in funding. Green Pieces, which also won the Audience Choice award ($2,000), is led by Kelly Schmandt who is getting her masters in the Bren School of Environmental Science and Managment at UCSB.

Finally, InFlowMed, led in part by mechanical engineer Alex Williams, took home “Best Pitch” ($4,000) and split the Audience choice award. The company makes software that prevents harmful drug interactions by checking prescriptions quickly for doctors at “point of care” in hospitals. They’re planning to develop their product on EMR (Electronic Medical Record) devices.

All of these companies are incredibly impressive and I look forward to learning more details about their operations and future plans. I’ve been in touch with most of the founders so look out for full profile pieces with more details this week!

You want a RoboScooter, you just don’t know it yet. The MIT-designed lightweight, folding, electric scooter is one their labs latest innovative creations that is bound to revolutionize urban mobility. The prototype of the new design, which was unveiled at the Milan Auto Show a couple of months ago, is a product of MIT’s Smart Cities Group run by professors and students. Their goal is to reduce the negative effects of extensive vehicle use, road congestion, air pollution, traffic noise, excessive consumption of space for parking, and ultimately reduce carbon emissions to slow global warming. No wonder they were a semifinalist at the MIT $100k.

They are working with manufacturers in Taiwan and Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research Institute. Motor scooters are already popular abroad in European and Asian cities and it’s about time that someone is doing something to reduce traffic congestion in these major cities. RoboScooter is an improvement because it is green and designed in such a way that eliminates the powertrain with the motors directly inside each of the two wheels. This makes it possible for the scooter to be folded up into half its size and making it easier to be stored in crowded urban environments.

If the scooter isn’t impressive enough, the team designed and accomplished the project in a mere eight months “from a blank sheet to a built concept.” Plans in the future not only center on selling these but creating systems where communities can share or rent from spots throughout the city Zip Car style. Check out the video to see it in action:

Covalent Solar may hold the key to increasing efficiency and cost effectiveness of solar energy. They just won the $20,000 MIT Student Team Award at the MIT Clean Energy Entrepreneurship Prize as well as another $10,000 the following day in the MIT $100k Business Plan Competition. Their simple, yet powerful idea is derived from concentrating sunlight onto smaller surface area rather than collecting it over a broader surface such as current solar panels. Their “Organic Solar Concentrators” look exactly like a quarter inch thick neon green piece of glass. However, the technology captures the light from the surfaces, redirects, and concentrates the light on the outer brim. The benefit comes from being able to create smaller photoelectric converters to turn the concentrated light on the brim into energy instead of large surface areas of solar panels such as the ones you are probably familiar with. (more…)

People were thrilled when cell phone companies rolled out built-in cameras. But now, they are about to be stunned. Shahyaan Desai, a graduate of Cornell University, is in the process of developing a high-definition micro video projector that utilizes breakthrough micro-mirror technology called Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS), to bring a new generation of displays to market. Imagine, instead of your massive rear projection system you have projector that is no larger than a matchbox! With this type of disruptive technology, it comes as no surprise that they have been able to lock down nearly $1 million in a seed round from 6 venture capital firms as well as taking the grand prize of $100,000 last Tuesday in New York’s Creative Core Emerging Business Competition.

Although it has potential to produce an incredible device, Mezmeriz Inc. faced a big challenge of creating a market for the new technology. Offices already have large projection systems, so they looked into more ubiquitous products such as digital assistants, cell phones, and MP3 players. This still begs the question whether or not people actually need a portable HD projector. Everything is shrinking, but does everything need to be so incredibly tiny? You would think that features would be compromised; however, a recent article explains that the opposite is true:

Though small, the device can project a wide image onto a wall or fold-out screen, making a much larger image than is possible with the tiny LCD screens that come with, say, the popular Apple iPod music and video players. (more…)

Loopt is a mobile social mapping tool. It uses GPS on mobile phones and devices to track friends and displays their locations visually on a map or in a list. You can request for alerts when your friends are within a certain distance, send messages to friends in a particular area and also share geo -tagged information and photos with your network. Right now the service is available on Sprint and Boost, and more service providers should be added soon. It costs $2.99 a month after a 30 day free trial. Loopt joins the likes of FireEagle by Yahoo and Whrrl by Pelago.

Loopt is two years old and was founded by Sam Altman and Nick Sivo. They are already in an advanced stage of growth with nearly $15 million in funding by Sequoia Capital and New Enterprise Associates. Loopt was one of the earliest startups invested in by YCombinator. YC funded the company when Sam was still a sophomore at Stanford University. Paul Graham mentions him in his ‘A student’s guide to startups‘ essay describing him as, “Ah, so this is what Bill Gates must have been like when he was 19.” Sam also advises some of the more recent YCombinator companies. (more…)

Husk Power Systems, a startup out of UVA’s Darden School of Business, is already providing electricity to nearly 10,000 rural Indians utilizing rice husk generators that run on piles of rice mill waste product. The proprietary technology and business model is brilliant because it provides three solutions to critical problems in India: 1) A lack of reliable electricity, which is a huge obstacle in rural India; 2) A reduction of carbon emissions that amounts to nearly 200 tons per village annually, and 3) The ability to bring new technology to remote villages that are struggling to keep up with the industrialized world. It’s no wonder Husk Power just won $50,000 at the University of Texas Social Innovation Competition for having the “most compelling new idea to change the world,” $1,000 for the People’s Choice Awards, $10,000 from Darden’s annual business plan competition and top 10 finalist recognition at the University of California at Berkeley Global Social Venture Competition. On top of all that, the team is currently a top 10 finalist in this year’s Ignite Clean Energy at MIT for the top prize of $125,000.

The story of the founders, Sinha and Pandey, is quite impressive (more…)

A team of students from the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon won the top prize at the Moot Corp business plan competition this past weekend. Moot Corp, held at the University of Texas at Austin, is considered one of the most important and prestigious competitions in the country. This year’s winners presented NeuroBank, which has developed proprietary technology to extract and preserve adult neural stem cells. This was reportedly the ninth year that Tepper has taken the prize (making them the winningest school in the competition’s 24 year history), this year beating out 37 competing teams from business schools and universities from around the globe.

The NeuroBank teams consists of Tepper MBA candidate Raymond Sekula, M.D., and Sasha Bakhru, a Ph.D. candidate at the Carnegie Mellon College of Engineering. The two scholars have developed technology to:

…harvest, isolate, expand and store neurologic stem cells from cerebrospinal fluid, a clear bodily fluid around and inside the brain. The technology allows minimally invasive extraction, isolation, expansion and cryopreservation of these stem cells and supports efforts to expand their use in developing treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, stroke or traumatic brain injury, among others. In addition, the technology will allow patients to store healthy neural stem cells today to receive cutting-edge treatments for diseases they might develop later in life.

Raymond and Sasha will receive $25,000 in cash and (more…)

Xobni (inbox spelled backwards) is changing the way the millions of Microsoft Outlook and Yahoo Mail users can interact with their email. The plug-in (soon available for other email clients) creates an information profile for each person you interact with, and provides relevant historical information such as contact information, previous threaded conversations, attachments you have exchanged, related people, email usage statistics (sent/received, rank relative to other contacts), and information from the web. This wealth of information is neatly displayed in a sidebar that is fast and intuitive to navigate and search.

As someone who uses his email for not only communication but also contact information, contact management and file storing, this simplistic software is an incredible value-add. (more…)