This week, the buek entrepreneurship center at the University of Washington’s foster school hosted the annual Environmental Innovation Challenge (EIC).
The finalists received a $45000 prize for their solutions to environmental management problems. More than 100 judges decided the winners of the competition, including undergraduate and graduate students from the Pacific Northwest and Alaska.
Alaska Airlines won the $15000 Award for catalytic carbon, an interdisciplinary UW student group that is creating a solution to convert waste into carbon nanotubes and reusable hydrogen. The solution aims to improve the efficiency of the recycling process. In 2018, about 14.5 million tons of plastic were finally landfilled. The organization also won a $5000 clean energy award from the Clean Energy Institute of the University of Washington for its work.
The winner of the $10000 Herbert B Jones Foundation second prize happens to be a team of master of science students from UW who are developing pet food for insects.
The third winner of the $5000 Starbucks award is the Arctic biotechnology oath, a group of students at ankolaki University in Alaska who use microorganisms to continuously extract rare materials.
The $5000 UW earthlab Community Impact Award was awarded to gardenpro, a team of UW students dedicated to developing more affordable and accessible home gardening solutions.
The winner of the $2500 best idea for climate impact prize sponsored by Eric Carlson is ultropia, a team of University of Washington students who developed a low-carbon footprint integrated washing machine.
The winner of the Connie bourassa Shaw Spark Award is plantseal, a group of University of Washington students who are developing plant-based compostable food packaging to limit the current use of toxic PFA materials in the industry.
