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These represent five of the most outstanding invention ventures from the 2009 Invent Your World Challenge – a partnership between Ashoka GenV and the Lemelson Foundation to inspire youth to invent a better future.

From nearly 300 entries from 30 countries, we have selected 45 to mentor, fund, and launch. Together, they offer convincing proof that young people all over the world are ready, eager and able to tackle our most difficult challenges – and they could use our support.

Our judges have chosen to recognize the following five for their innovation, impact and sustainability.

EXCELLENCE AWARD

VERSATILE System
Javier Fernandez-Han, 15
Houston, TX, USA

ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

AVANZA
Pablo Alejandro Medrano, 23
Jovita Andrea Céspedes, 25
Salta, Argentina

Dynamic Photovoltaics
Eden Full, 16
Calgary, AB, Canada

Handibot
Vincent Thiberville, 20
Champs sur Marne, France

Rainwater for Humanity
Carolyn Aker, 18
Providence, RI, USA

We’d like to thank our judges, partners and all the youth who participated in the 2009 Invent Your World Challenge.

***UPDATE: If you would like to apply for seed funding for your invention or adapted technology project, please email bcarr@youthventure.org to request an application.***

Now, picture this: Trucks releasing cleaner emissions and making fuel as they drive. Our proposed solution involves the growth of algae, of which oil is extracted for biodiesel production. Each truck would have an “algae panel” attached to its top, comparable in size to a solar panel and filled with water and algae.

It would be connected to the trucks exhaust system, so the emissions would pass through the panel before entering the atmosphere.

The carbon dioxide emitted from the trucks helps the algae grow, while the algae filters out the nitrogen oxide and hydrocarbons. As the panel fills up with algae, systems would be set up at gas stations to drain out portions of the algae, leaving room for new growth. The biodiesel produced from the algae would be used to fuel the trucks.

Goals:

• Research algae types, trucking requirements and emission levels to determine design of system
• Test strains of algae for rate of growth, ability to feed off of CO2 and nitrous oxide emissions and oil content. Determine best strain to use.
• Construct a working prototype and test system. Make modifications.
• Apply for patent.

Here is a sample of algae that we have worked to grow.

In this thought-provoking, scary(?) talk from the TED conference, P.W. Singer shows us how robots are being used in war today, what they portend for the future, and why we should care.

We plan to create methane from an anaerobic digester and then take the gas and convert it into methanol.  This methanol is an important part of the biodiesel production process and is currently obtained from processes using natural gas, which are inherently harmful to the environment.

Our project would take the manure from the farm and capture the methane released (which is a green house gas with more potency than carbon dioxide) and minimize the amount of natural gas required for the project.

This process would allow the biodiesel to be produced by more natural byproducts and without the need of more gas drilling.

This venture will demonstrate to the community that we can reduce our dependence on oil just by leveraging potential energy sources that are generally wasted and ignored. It will also produce higher grade fertilizer in the digestion process and remove the excess green house gas (methane) from the air while producing a necessary component of a clean fuel.

Success will be measured by the net amount of methanol created by the process. This not only represents the amount of green house gas that was stopped from going into the air, but also the amount of natural gas conserved by the process. We aim for the steady production of a gallon of methanol gas produced every week, but without further research it will be impossible to tell our lower and upper limits.

Goals:

• Design and construct an anaerobic digestion process
• Design and construct a methane-to-methanol conversion process
• Purify methanol to high qualities (90%)
• Use methanol in current biodiesel process

The ABP is a student-run project doing independent research into creating biodiesel fuel from algae. We are a team of about thirty high-school students from twenty-three school districts across Connecticut spending time outside of school and on weekends doing original research and experimentation.

With the world’s supply of fossil fuels dwindling and global warming hovering over us, a practical solution is required today. We believe that algal biodiesel is the solution. Algae is a domestic, non-food crop with a much higher oil yield than other alternative fuel feedstock, and is easily cultivated on fallow land. Biodiesel is a renewable fuel that emits far less pollution than petrochemicals and can be used with existing infrastruct ure.

We have seen the effect of a failing oil supply on the world economy; biodiesel can replace reliance on oil and replace fossil fuels with clean, renewable energy. Biodiesel is a practical alternative energy that can fundamentally alter the energy industry and its impact on the environment of tomorrow.

Goals:

• 

  Create a process that will capture at least 50% of the oil from algal biomass with energy cost not exceeding amount of energy extracted

• Enact complete process for cultivating algae, harvesting it, extracting oil, and turning oil into biodiesel
• Make our product usable in a diesel motor and compliant with ASTM standards for biodiesel
• Refine and optimize product until it is equal to or more eco-friendly than other sources of biodiesel

Algae Tanks

]]> http://genvcampaigns.org/2009/04/13/venture-algal-biodiesel-project/feed/ 11 http://genvcampaigns.org/2009/04/13/venture-dehydrator/ http://genvcampaigns.org/2009/04/13/venture-dehydrator/#comments Mon, 13 Apr 2009 20:01:07 +0000 Charles Tsai http://genvcampaigns.org/?p=529 Andrew Barth, 17, USA - The object is to invent a dehydrator that has been combined with a dehumidifier, which can be used by farmers, food processing corporations, or bio-diesel corporations in rural developing countries.

The dehydrator would effectively and efficiently dehydrate a product within a few days, while also condensing the moisture out of the air for use by the cultivators as drinking water. It will have expandable capacity to grow with the increase of their businesses, yet low cost to the consumer. As of now, water is becoming increasingly scarce for many populations on this planet.

By creating this product, we could provide those struggling individuals with vital water supplies that they would otherwise go without.

Another benefit afforded by the creation of this device allows for the ability of farmers to stimulate the economy by preserving what would become wasted crop and then selling it. For example, a farmer who grows tomatoes to sell at market would benefit in that he could dry his produce and sell it at a premium in the form of sun-dried tomatoes.

Although the focus remains intent on benefiting the local farmer, it has shifted to provide greater focus on those farmers living in the more arid regions of the world, specifically those of sub-Saharan Africa. It is in these regions that we believe our product would be most useful since it would provide farmers with much needed water and much needed money through the creation of gourmet-type food items.

Goals:

• Design, create and test prototypes
• Create final product that yields potable water
• Secure funding to buy raw materials and components
• Successfully make the product into a consumer good that can be sold in sub-Saharan Africa and other arid environments

Max Wallack, 12, won the Intel sponsored $10,000 grand prize for his Home Dome invention, which is largely made from discarded plastic and provides temporary shelter to the homeless and displaced victims of natural disasters. Max spent a day at Continuum, a design and innovation consultancy building a full-scale version of the Home Dome with Continuum’s Richard Ciccarelli, director of their model shop and Design Squad host Nate Ball who helped collaborate with Max to take his idea of an easy-to-build and efficient shelter for the homeless to the next level.

1) Describe the moment when you first thought of yourself as an inventor.  What happened?

The moment when I first considered myself an inventor was when I started writing my patent. As I was looking through the pages or required documents and what I would be required do in order to document my progress the idea that I had become an inventor and that this project had really taken off sank in. It let me sit back for a second with a smile on my face, then I got back to work…

2) How did the idea for TruV come about?

As I got older I became more aware of my disability. When I was told that I couldn’t drive the fact that this disability was really a disability sank in. I then became more aware (through research) that I wasn’t the only one that was visually impaired.

One day my grandparents bought my family a camcorder. While playing with it I quickly realized that I could use the 32x zoom to see and more importantly read text from further away. The gears in my mind started to turn; I knew that technology could fix this issue, or at least help. However after hours of research I found that a low-vision aid that did anything close to what I wanted simply didn’t exist.

For a while I became angry at the system. I knew that there wasn’t a good market for low-vision aids so of course no corporation would waste their time developing one. I had always know that the tech to let me drive would be around in the next ten years or within ten years the cars could drive themselves but ten years is way too far off.

Why stand by and wait when I already had figured out the “how” part of the equation? If anyone was going to solve this issue it should be someone who knows it all too well.

3) What’s the greatest challenge in this project?

There are many great challenges that must be overcome for the TruV project to work. I feel that the programming will be difficult, we are high schoolers working with code for a new platform . We are attempting to do things that haven’t been done on this platform.

4) Which inventors do you find most inspirational?  Why?

Dean Kamen. Dean Kamen is a man who has sold his soul to too many projects designed to help the needy. He is a revolutionary thinker and a selfless man.

5) What do you think are the three essential qualities or skills of a great inventor?

As an inventor you absolutely have to be able to think outside the box. Sometimes we are required to think way outside the box. In this day you must be in tune with technology. For example, the inventors of the 21st century aren’t making the wheel, we’re re-inventing a smarter wheel that can detect when its pressure is low and notify you.

6) Why are you so passionate about being an inventor?

I’ve been building stuff since I was able to walk. Throughout my childhood I was a Lego fanatic. It was a dream to enter robotics competitions. Since then I’ve lived that dream, I’ve been to robotics competitions around the country and placed high in a few. Now it’s time to enter the real world and solve some of the issues we face. Back to the question… Why am I so passionate? What drives me? I have absolutely no idea but I know that I can utilize that drive to accomplish great things.

7) In the years to come, what issue or problem would you like to tackle with your inventive spirit?

I don’t want to put my efforts towards well known crushing problems like global warming. We have thousands of very intelligent people working on that and other problems like it. I would like to tackle the lesser known problems that affect us here in the United States. What exactly will I do? Well I hope to work on projects like Artificial Intelligents or AI, new ways of circuitry (IE. 3D printed circuits on flexible surfaces), etc.

Related Post:
VENTURE: TruV (True Vision)

Kids vs Global Warming (web) makes it clear that the climate crisis will affect our generation the most. We are the ones who will have to deal with global warming if nothing is done today to help us.

Many youth don’t realize that we have the power to make change. Youth care about this issue. And they are ready to do something about it.

So Kids vs Global Warming gives presentations to schools about what global warming is, how it affects us, and what we can do NOW to take action.

After each presentation, we start an action team: a group of kids who are empowered to make change in their community. We provide each action team resources they need to green their schools, give presentations of their own, and start activism projects in their cities.

We also do our own activism projects like SLAP, the Sea Level Awareness Project where we are alerting our city, on the coast of California, of the dangers of sea level rise as a result of global warming. We put up 8 ft tall poles along the promenade at the beach showing how far under water we’d be if we don’t make changes NOW. The poles also point out how we need to work together because the waste water treatment center and electricity generating stations, among other needed things, would be affected.

We will be training other kids to give presentations and do projects like ours in their own towns. We’re creating an “Activist in a Box” kit that brings together tools and resources from lots of different organizations so kids have some support when they start clubs after our presentations. They’ll be able to do energy audits, learn about green jobs, start green businesses, talk to their families and cities about alternative energy, give presentations of their own, learn how to talk to the media and meet with government officials, etc.

Link: Kids vs Global Warming Website

We will offer green loans in four ways:

1. Providing all borrowers with education about basic environmental issues such as climate change and recycling, while also focusing on ways in which borrowers can benefit from the green economy either by saving money on utility bills, getting green jobs or starting green businesses.
2. By working with all enterprise loan recipients to implement green elements such as energy efficiency and recycling into their business. We will also help them quantify and market the environmental benefits of those practices.
3. By working with what we are calling green collar entrepreneurs–low-income individuals that, rather than getting entry level jobs in the green economy, want to start green microbusinesses such as landscapers, cleaning services and weatherization companies.
4. By connecting borrowers with other services, including free energy audits, green networking events, and environmental non-profits, that can help them save money, make money and create a healthier home and work environment.

At a time when the American banking system is in crisis, The Capital Good Fund will be providing affordable loans to those that most need it: the working poor.

These hard working individuals will gain access to the power of the financial system, and will also be able to participate in and benefit from the green economy as a result of our loan program.

Link: Website