-Students from IIT Kharagpur and KL University, Vijaywada awarded 10,000 USD for further development and implementation of the winning ideas
- Winning technologies to promote a micro grid structure and a Bio-Array system
New Delhi, December 09, 2010: GE recently announced the winners of its open Innovation challenge from India in the students' category. The winning teams from IIT Kharagpur and K L University, Vijaywada will be awarded price money of 10,000 USD to further develop and implement their technology innovation ideas to build a Smart Grid of the future. "GE Ecomagination Challenge -- Powering the Grid" was launched in July 2010 to find breakthrough ideas to create a smarter, cleaner, more efficient electric grid, and accelerate the adoption of more efficient grid technologies.
The winning ideas are a Micro gird to power eco-friendly buildings and homes; and Bio reactor system to reduce the production time and cost of bio diesel. The winners were evaluated by a committee of representatives of GE businesses, the partner firms for the challenge, academics and technologists.
"Congratulations to the winners and I wish them all the best. I am glad that young engineering talent from India is working towards innovative ideas that will help drive a cleaner, more efficient and economically viable grid. India's energy consumption has been increasing at one of the fastest rates in the world offering significant potential for generation of power using clean and renewable energy sources. GE's Ecomagination initiative is aimed at accelerating R&D and deployment of clean energy technology", commented Mr. John L. Flannery, President and CEO, GE India.
"We launched the Challenge to encourage new thinking and spur innovation at every level of development," said Ms. Beth Comstock, senior vice president and chief marketing officer, GE. "The first step toward modernizing our grid is to uncover ideas and transform them into game-changing technologies and the Challenge has demonstrated that many great ideas exist out there."
Winning Innovation Ideas
Winners I: Bio Array system to reduce production time & Cost of Bio-Diesel
Institute: IIT Kharagpur
Prateek Bhattsamant
Ankur Dutta
Akhilesh Betanamudi
Aaditya Sai Kiran
Dripta Sarkar
- Development of BioArray - a bioreactor system
- It allows microalgae to grow much more rapidly than in conventional systems
- Greatly brings down the cost and time to produce biodiesel as well as reduces human labour
- Ensures the successful implementation of the concept of centralized biodiesel production and decentralized microalgae production, and hence can be implemented in cities and suburbs very efficiently.
Winners II: Micro grid to create eco-friendly homes
Manohar Kota
Institute: K L University, Vijaywada
- Differentiate utility into smaller parts so that it can increase reliability and reduce maintenance
- Use non-conventional energy sources like fuel cells, and PVs,
- The grid will help power eco-friendly homes and buildings
- It is maintenance free as well as cost effective
- More about the "Ecomagination challenge: Powering the Grid"
The Challenge generated nearly 4,000 ideas and facilitated robust conversations across the open innovation platform between 70,000 entrepreneurs in more than 150 countries over a 10-week period. GE partnered with four leading venture capital firms, Emerald Technology Ventures, Foundation Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byer and RockPort Capital, to conceive and implement the Challenge, calling for innovation ideas in three categories: Renewables, Grid and Eco Homes/Eco Buildings. The winners will be offered the opportunity to develop a commercial relationship with GE through investment, validation, distribution, development and growth. Anyone aged 18 years or older and all legally formed entities were eligible to participate. For additional details on the challenge, and to view the full terms and conditions visit www.ecomagination.com/challenge.
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