{"123221":{"#nid":"123221","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Environmental Technology Wins Ideas to SERVE","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EMekong Green Tech\u0027s technology to clean up rural Vietnam\u0027s rural brick-making industry won first place in the 2012 Ideas to SERVE (I2S) Competition at Georgia Tech College of Management.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOpen to all Georgia Tech students and recent alumni, the I2S competition involves innovative business concepts that could help improve society or preserve the environment. The finals were held on April 4 following a poster showcase on April 2.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMekong Green Tech includes mechanical engineering majors Chris Quintero and James Baunchalk, environmental engineering major Hannah Kates, and industrial design major Ali Perry. They won $2,000 for first place as well as $250 in the People\u0027s Choice category.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAlready Making a Difference\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhile some competing teams are still in the conceptual stages, Mekong Green Tech is already making its business a reality. Its technology helps solve pollution problems related to brick-making techniques in rural Vietnam through the use of simple, low-cost gasifiers. Retrofitting a kiln with this kind of gasifier eliminates air pollutants and offsets up to 300 tons of carbon dioxide emissions a year.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe team explained that instead of using clean-burning furnaces, rural industries tend to rely on burning biomass. \u0022This inefficient combustion produces incredible amounts of air pollution, damaging health, stunting crop growth, and wasting money,\u0022 according to the Mekong Green Tech Website. \u0022The situation is particularly bad with the brick-making industry. Worldwide CO\u003Csub\u003E2\u003C\/sub\u003E emissions from brick kilns \u2013 180 million tons yearly \u2013 are one third of the emissions of the global airline industry.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECollaboration\u0026nbsp;between Georgia Tech engineers and\u0026nbsp;ENTERTEAM, a Vietnamese partner organization, led to the development of a gasifier model built with local materials and expertise. This technology would save operators more than 25 percent in yearly fuel costs and ease pressure from the Vietnamese government, which has cracked down on the rural brick-making industry because of pollution.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMekong Green Tech, which also won third place in the Georgia Tech Business Plan Competition, is working on a number of pilot installations with the goal of a widespread roll-out later this year. Marc-Antoine Pare, who graduated with a bachelor\u0027s in mechanical engineering from Tech in fall 2010, is already working in Vietnam\u0026nbsp;on the project. \u0026nbsp;\u0022In the Mekong Delta alone, over 10,000 small businesses stand to benefit,\u0022 the team says.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EOther Winners\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe second-place winner ($1,500) in I2S was CyborFusion, which has developed a bionic glove that will function as both a myoelectric hand orthotic for those who have a disability and an affordable myoelectric prosthetic for those who have an amputation below the elbow.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETied for third ($1,000) were Tubing Operations for Humanitarian Logistics (TOHL) and Team Power. TOHL is developing a fluid transportation system that could deliver large quantities of water over significant distances in disaster-hit areas. Team Power, which also won the Liam Rattray Social Courage Award ($500) and Best Video ($250), is developing a power generation\/storage system to provide cold storage of vaccines in developing countries.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHub Atlanta provided two service-package prizes. One worth $1,600 for Most Market-ready went to Sanivation, which aims to improve sanitation in developing countries through the collection and solar-energy treatment of human feces (for future sale as fertilizer). The other service package (worth $1,575) was for Best Idea, and it went to CyborFusion (described above).\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EEighteen teams (with a total of 41 participants from multiple Colleges at Tech) competed in the preliminary round, before getting narrowed down to seven in the finals. More than 25 judges were involved in the competition, representing innovative businesses and social enterprises.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EA series of workshops leading up to the competition helped students prepare, and they\u0026nbsp;received guidance from business-community mentors. The competition is organized by Georgia Tech\u0027s Institute for Leadership and Entrepreneurship (ILE).\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EI2S was sponsored by Gray Ghost Ventures, HUB Atlanta, and MaRC Sustainable Design \u0026amp; Manufacturing as well as Tech\u0027s ILE, College of Management, and the Tedd Munchak Chair in Entrepreneurship.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EMekong Green Tech\u0027s technology to clean up rural Vietnam\u0027s rural brick-making industry won first place in the 2012 Ideas to SERVE (I2S) Competition at Georgia Tech College of Management.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Mekong Green Tech seeks to clean up rural Vietnam\u0027s rural brick-making industry"}],"uid":"27271","created_gmt":"2012-04-10 14:31:09","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:12:00","author":"Brad Dixon","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2012-04-05T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2012-04-05T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"123231":{"id":"123231","type":"image","title":"Mekong Green Tech (I2S winner)","body":null,"created":"1449178582","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:36:22","changed":"1475894743","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:45:43","alt":"Mekong Green Tech (I2S winner)","file":{"fid":"194428","name":"i2swinner.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/i2swinner_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/i2swinner_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1555681,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/i2swinner_0.jpg?itok=XC5XtcRA"}}},"media_ids":["123231"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=b0xVd6FH5Oc","title":"Mekong Green Tech Elevator Pitch Video"},{"url":"http:\/\/ile.gatech.edu\/i2s\/index.html","title":"Ideas to SERVE"}],"groups":[{"id":"1274","name":"Scheller College of Business"}],"categories":[{"id":"129","name":"Institute and Campus"},{"id":"139","name":"Business"},{"id":"133","name":"Special Events and Guest Speakers"},{"id":"8862","name":"Student Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"2654","name":"business plan"},{"id":"807","name":"environment"},{"id":"479","name":"Green Buzz"},{"id":"29881","name":"Ideas to SERVE"},{"id":"167390","name":"social entrepreneurship"},{"id":"167585","name":"student competition"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:brad.dixon@mgt.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EBrad Dixon\u003C\/a\u003E, College of Management\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["brad.dixon@mgt.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}