The InVenture Prize is an innovation competition for undergraduate students at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Students work independently or in teams on inventions that will be presented to and judged by a panel of experts.

This year’s finalists are:

• Entripic Wake: A rigid, portable, and customizable obstacle/rail system for extreme water sports

1. Graeme Wicks – Polymer, Fiber and Textile Engineering, Louisville, KY
2. Spencer Price – Industrial Design, Appalachian State University, Salisbury, NC

• Re-hand: Software assisted home-use hand assessment and rehabilitation device

1. Alkindi Kibria - Biomedical Engineering, Rockville, MD
2. Elizabeth LeMar – Biomedical Engineering, Roswell, GA
3. Kunal Dean MacDonald - Biomedical Engineering, Macon, GA
4. Daphne Vincent - Biomedical Engineering, McDonough, GA

• CourseShark: An online system for creating and sharing college class schedules

1.        Gregg Cobb – Computer Science, Mountain View, CA
2.        James Rundquist – Computer Science, Acworth, GA

• CardiacTech: Chest retractor for bypass surgery

1. Kevin Parsons - Mechanical Engineering, Sugar Hill, GA
2. Mathew Lee – Biomedical Engineering, Atlanta, GA
3. Priya Patil – Biomedical Engineering, Atlanta, GA
4. Benji Hoover – Mechanical Engineering, Flowery Branch, GA
5. Josh DeVane – Mechanical Engineering, Atlanta, GA

• Stylii: An extraordinarily precise and pressure-sensitive capacitive stylus

1. Matthew Stoddard – Industrial Design, Clarksville, TN      
2. Christopher Vollo – Electrical Engineering, Alpharetta, GA

• DEfT Pad: Touchscreen device giving guitarists the functionality of a distortion pedal

1. David Burke – Computer Engineering, Canton, GA
2. Bradley Keller – Electrical Engineering, Gainesville, GA
3. Sarosh Ali Shahbuddin – Electrical Engineering, Rock Hill, SC
4. Michael Barrington Stone - Electrical Engineering, Augusta, GA
5. Jarred Vallbracht – Electrical Engineerig, Covington, GA                       

The two winning inventions from either individuals or teams will be selected and will receive:

• A cash prize of $15,000 for first place or $10,000 for second place.
• A free U.S. patent filing by Georgia Tech's Office of Technology Licensing (each valued at approximately $20,000) for both the first and second place winners.
• Automatic acceptance to the summer 2012 Class of Flashpoint, a Georgia Tech startup accelerator program.

In addition, a $5,000 “People’s Choice” award, provided by the Georgia Tech Research Corporation, will be presented. The live audience and broadcast viewers will have the opportunity to help select the winner of this award by voting on the Internet or texting in their favorite finalist.

InVenture Prize co-host, Pogue, is a personal-technology columnist for The New York Times and NYTimes.com and a tech correspondent at CBS News, CBS News Sunday Morning, NPR - Morning Edition and a frequent of PBS series NOVA. He is also a contributor at CNBC.com and Blogger at Pogue's Posts. Pogue studied music, English and computer science at Yale University. He graduated summa cum laude, with a distinction in music.

Co-host Bahareh Azizi earned a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry/biotechnology in 1999 from Michigan State University and then moved to Atlanta to pursue a doctoral degree from Georgia Tech in biochemistry. Since completing her Ph.D. in 2005, Azizi has worked at Georgia Tech and Oxford College of Emory University as an educator, researcher and administrator.

This year’s InVenture Prize judges will be Deborah Kilpatrick, senior vice president at CardioDx; David Phelps, president and chief executive officer of CreoSalus and Paul Ollinger, who is a Facebook alumnus, social media advisor and comedian.  

In addition to airing on GPB, the 2012 Georgia Tech InVenture Prize competition will be streaming online at www.gpb.org.

The InVenture Prize is free and open to the public. You can reserve your tickets by registering online at https://inventureprize.gatech.edu/.