At Tech, competition is mother of invention

Innovation is alive and well at Georgia Tech, where students have figured out how to clean carbon dioxide emissions, compare product prices from a cellphone and heat lunch without a microwave.

And those are just the undergraduates.

Those three inventions were among eight semifinalists for Tech’s first InVenture prizes celebrating invention, adventure and venture —- as in capital.

The winning team of five students, announced Monday, earned $10,000 for its Chlorocyte Bioreactor, which uses algae to eliminate carbon dioxide emissions generated by power plants.

A potential “game changer” for the planet, said Christopher Klaus, one of three judges in the final round of competition.

“What’s one of the bigger global challenges?” asked Klaus, who founded both Kaneva virtual entertainment and Internet Security Systems Inc. “Energy and carbon dioxide are going to be continuing problems.”

Joseph Abrahamson of Suwanee, William Boyd of Dayton, Tenn., Andrew Punnoose of Ashburn, Va., Kento Masuyama of Peachtree City and Sanjay Challa of Alpharetta were the winning team.

Roger Pincombe of Peachtree City won the $5,000 individual award for DialPrice, which allows a shopper to compare prices by feeding a product code number into any cellphone.

Tech also will give the winners about $20,000 in legal help and fees to patent their products. School officials helped all finalists obtain provisional patents.

Heat ‘n’ Go, a food container that heats its contents by a chemical reaction, didn’t make the final cut. But judges said they believe the invention by recent graduate Mario Taylor of Alexandria, Va., and senior Jessica Carter of Baton Rouge, La., would succeed. “A slam dunk,” one called it.

The contest was intended to encourage a culture of innovation among even Tech’s youngest students, said vice provost Raymond Vito. The response —- about 200 inquiries —- was surprising, he said. Sixty-two participants followed through.

“For the first year, it was beyond our wildest expectations,” Vito said.

Two teams of judges —- the first from faculty, the second from the business community —- grilled contestants on market research, production costs, profit margins and potential competition.

Terry Blum, director of Tech’s Institute for Leadership and Entrepreneurship, questioned whether DialPrice inventor Pincombe would stay in school if he won.

“Definitely,” he replied.

Then Blum cut to the question every college loves to pose: Would Pincombe, she asked, give Tech a building someday?