Alumni in the News

This Incredible Innovation Is Lifting a Huge Weight off Women’s Shoulders in Maharashtra’s Villages

One of the most important and equally toiling chore was fetching water from the nearest well, which was over 5 miles from her house, in steel pots that she’d carry over her head and on her waist. At least 10 to 20 litres of water was required for the household and that would mean at least four to five trips to the well. She’d spend three to four hours and an incredible amount of energy to fulfil the most basic of needs- water.
https://www.thebetterindia.com/103278/incredible-innovation-lifting-huge-weight-off-womens-shoulders-maharashtras-villages/

Alumni in the News

Dechets a l’or: Cuthbert Ayodeji Onikute is turning garbage into gold in Guinea.

Ayo is the CEO and founder of Dechets a l’or, a social venture that creates new sources of revenue for communities and improves environmental sustainability through an innovative waste management system in Guinea. During his Master’s programme at Columbia University where he studied Urban Planning with a focus on International Development in African cities, Ayo came across the idea of using waste as a source of fuel and energy to improve cities. “And that’s how Dechets a l’or came about,” he told Ventures Africa.
http://venturesafrica.com/features/dechets-a-lor-cuthbert-ayodeji-onikute-is-turning-garbage-to-gold-in-guinea/

Alumni in the News

FireflyPower

FireflyPower™ turbines have two blades and can be attached to a roof or pole, or used on the ground. There are numerous options on how to channel and utilize the generated electricity, whether that is tying into an existing grid, using battery storage or pairing with solar– all with the goal of making renewable wind energy more accessible.
https://mailchi.mp/oceanexchange/2017-06

Alumni in the News

Producing a Portable Fridge That Runs on Sun and Water

The story of the company, which is now headquartered at MassChallenge as an “alumni in residence,” starts at a class of the MIT Development Lab. The first day, the professor asked for ideas that “would change the life of one billion people.”
https://www.americaninno.com/boston/these-masschallenge-alumni-are-producing-a-portable-fridge-that-runs-on-sun-and-water/

Alumni in the News

In Burma, Facebook can be your OB-GYN

For the country’s women, reproductive and sexual health care often remains out of reach – and it’s having deadly consequences. Each year, 2,800 women die due to complications from pregnancy, childbirth and post-natal care.
https://asiancorrespondent.com/2017/05/burma-facebook-can-ob-gyn/#dIvc7zeiTVCxxP7v.97

Alumni in the News

How safe are sanitary pads in India?

“Contrary to claims, most of what is in the market doesn’t even use cotton. It is mostly wood pulp. Almost all use the same materials, changes are in the form—how it looks and feels versus what materials are used. As for the chemicals used, every company will say that the quantity of chemicals, SAP or chlorine bleach they use will not kill you,” said Sarah McMillan, business development lead at Saathi Pads, a start-up that makes biodegradable sanitary pads.

http://www.livemint.com/Industry/T3XIiwJI31WZuK1IsoUOJL/How-safe-are-sanitary-pads-in-India.html

Alumni in the News

Millennial Food Innovators: Kulisha Turns Flies into Sustainable Animal Feed

USA-based Kulisha is taking on the destructive fishing practices of commercial vessels. Practices like bottom trawling, blast fishing and cyanide fishing result in unintentional by-catch and the destruction of coral reefs. As the world’s population continues to increase, finding regenerative sources of protein is imperative. Kulisha is betting on the Black Soldier Fly as this alternative source of protein.
https://foodtechconnect.com/2017/05/11/millennial-food-innovators-kulisha-turns-flies-into-sustainable-animal-feed/

Alumni in the News

Shaper of the Month: Nisha Witt

While working on a research paper, I found an article about how cell phones were starting to become the top contributors for excessive carbon emission. I was shocked and amazed that there were not a lot of gadgets to help mobile device users alleviate the need to recharge their phone from a tethered indoor outlet. So I was inspired to invent a solar powered cell phone charger using Luminescent solar concentrators, or LSCs. It didn’t take off as quickly and as well as I had anticipated, so I pivoted the idea into a solar powered bench. The concept is still the same, but the design is vastly different.
http://www.norfolkglobalshapers.com/thempulse/2017/5/6/shaper-of-the-month-nisha-witt

Alumni in the News

10 ideas that could change the world

The 30 regional finalists of the Chivas Venture social entrepreneurship competition are preparing for the global finale in LA this summer. Here are ten of those businesses – each with the potential to change the world.
http://www.esquireme.com/content/20031-10-ideas-that-could-change-the-world

Alumni in the News

Rwanda’s ‘solar smart kiosk’ provides digital solutions to rural mobile phone users

Entrepreneur Henri Nyakarundi created a “solar smart kiosk” out of frustration from his experiences struggling to find a place to charge his Blackberry in Rwanda. His solution was a stand-alone cart that runs on renewable energy and serves as a one-stop digital center for mobile phone users in semi-urban and rural areas.
https://www.devex.com/news/rwanda-s-solar-smart-kiosk-provides-digital-solutions-to-rural-mobile-phone-users-89956

Alumni in the News

Mobile Tech Spans Health Gap for Developing World’s Pregnant Women

Developed by IT social enterprise Koe Koe Tech, the app provides comprehensive information to pregnant women from pre-natal to post-natal care. It includes quizzes and daily alerts for the duration of pregnancy and the first three years of the infant’s life.The app helps users find doctors, hospitals, maternity and child supplies. It also provides a chat service where “pregnant women and parents can discuss their issues with peers,” said Koe Koe Tech’s Michael Lwin in an email.

https://blogs.voanews.com/techtonics/2017/03/24/mobile-tech-spans-health-gap-for-developing-worlds-pregnant-women/

Alumni in the News

GTX Corp. Signs Collaboration Agreement with Energy Harvesters LLC

CA-GTX Corp, an IoT platform and global provider of personal location GPS, BLE, cellular and RFID, tracking and monitoring wearable and wandering assistive technology and Energy Harvesters LLC, a Boston-based company announced today signing a Memorandum of Understanding to explore incorporating Energy Harvesters’ patented Walking Charger™ with the GPS SmartSole® and other wearable tech and IoT products within the GTX family of wearable footwear technology.

http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/gtx-corp-signs-collaboration-agreement-with-energy-harvesters-llc-pinksheets-gtxo-2204586.htm

Back To the Roots
Alumni in the News

Proof That Not All Kids are Addicted to Sugar

When you were a kid, chances are, the days when you were allowed to pick out your own breakfast meant one thing: a heaping bowl of Lucky Charms or Cinnamon Toast Crunch. And if your mom stocked the house with “healthy cereal,” your only option was something very bland. Bleh.
https://www.wellandgood.com/good-food/back-to-the-roots-cereal-nyc-schools/

Alumni in the News

Interview: Axios Impact Investment

Peacefully indomitable may sound like an oxymoron, but that is exactly how I would describe Aaron & Abigail Sebesta’s calm but determined attitude and presence. Immediately intrigued by their life stories they spoke about during our house hunting together, I wasn’t surprised when less than a year later they took a huge step in pursuing their dream of moving to South America to help farmers finance their operations. Now in Cusco, Peru, their business–Axios Impact Investments–is embarking on a true social enterprise mission to solve one of the world’s biggest problems.
https://thatsdurangoblog.wordpress.com/axios-impact-investment-interview/?fbclid=IwAR3UDc6cThCUAjx36oQJSRigsniHT1TuI-IW2LeNZr_fg86RCo5MpDlffJU

Back To the Roots
Alumni in the News

Healthier Cereals Snare a Spot on New York School Menus

The New York City public school system has quietly replaced breakfast cereals made by the Kellogg Company, the titan whose name is virtually synonymous with cereal, with those from a small California upstart called Back to the Roots.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/01/dining/cereal-health-new-york-city-public-schools.html?_r=0

Back To the Roots
Alumni in the News

Back to the Roots, NYC Schools Take ‘Undo Food’ Movement One Step Further

Back to the Roots was that something different. Though miniscule in comparison to food industry giants such as Kellogg, the California startup — which last summer got a $10-million funding boost from investors — offers a lineup of organic cereals with half as much sugar as conventional brands and no preservatives or added vitamins.
http://www.sustainablebrands.com/news_and_views/startups/libby_maccarthy/back_roots_lands_major_deal_new_york_city_schools

Alumni in the News

Garden Spaces Join the Sharing Economy

Alfrea, a company based in Linwood, New Jersey, is trying to extend the sharing economy to garden spaces. The company was founded in 2016 as an online marketplace for renting land and finding farm hands for hire. Alfrea has since expanded to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Frederick, Maryland. The company has plans to expand nationwide. The website also has as a farmers’ market platform which allows farmers to sell produce at any time.
https://foodtank.com/news/2017/03/alfrea-plants-garden-spaces-sharing-economy/

Alumni in the News

Shark Tank Solar Entrepreneurs’ Next ‘Bright Idea’ Launches on Kickstarter

“When we were students first creating our technology in 2010, we designed it with the needs of disaster victims in mind. We wanted to provide comfort and safety after dark to those who had lost everything,” says LuminAID co-founder Anna Stork. “It’s 2017 now, and we live in an increasingly connected world — there are actually more more mobile phones than people on the planet!
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2017/02/prweb14044605.htm

Alumni in the News

The next round of beer innovations

A pilot program partnership with Boom Algae takes carbon dioxide and other waste byproducts of fermentation and feeds them to the algae. The algae is harvested and sold to Living Ink Technologies, which uses it to make a 100-percent biodegradable green ink. “It sounded wacky at first,” says Upslope’s founder Matt Cutter. “But we’re hoping this is successful and leads Boom Algae to the next step, where eventually it becomes something that can handle more or all of the CO2 from our brewery.”
http://draftmag.com/brewing-innovations-research-science/

Alumni in the News

C. Ethan Smith of Roads Ahead et al.

Our supply chain is pretty eco-friendly. We use local businesses that are within six miles of us. If we order materials outside of Ohio we make sure to do ground shipping versus airfreight. We also seek to use materials that are eco-friendly and made in the U.S. Notably, we strive to lower our carbon footprint through the use of organic materials.
http://www.hivelocitymedia.com/founders/cethansmith092613.aspx

Back To the Roots
Alumni in the News

Building the better fishbowl: Aquaponics combines fish, greens to create cleaner food

The commercial for the AquaFarm, a three-gallon fish bowl topped with a lid for growing potted plants that its inventors call “a self-cleaning fish tank that grows food,” pretty much sums up the way aquaponics works—even if the pitch, at times, sounds like some green-techie hipster satire straight out of a “Portlandia” skit.
http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/life/building-the-better-fishbowl-aquaponics-combines-fish-greens-to-create/article_cad5319e-e4e0-11e6-8d01-cf596ef1a536.html

Alumni in the News

An Amazonian super-leaf drink loved by Channing Tatum, Richard Branson and Leonardo DiCaprio is giving indigenous farmers a lift.

Every morning before dawn, the Amazon-dwelling Kichwa tribe partake in a 2,000-year-old tea-drinking ritual. Guayusa (pronounced gwhy-yoo-sa) is their brew of choice, served in a hollowed-out gourd. Rather like many of us before our first caffeine hit, the Kichwa say they are not ‘Runa’, which translates as ‘fully alive human being’, before their first bowl.
http://www.billionaire.com/travel/2701/indigenous-brew-an-amazonian-superleaf

Alumni in the News

Tala in the news

In emerging markets and the developing world, access to banking, capital, and financial resources is far more difficult than here in the U.S., due to a less developed financial system, lack of credit tracking, and oftentimes and informal economy. Santa Monica-based Tala, backed by Google Ventures and Lowercase Capital, has developed a tool that allows anyone with a cell phone to build a financial track record, specially for people in emerging markets.
http://www.socaltech.com/interview_with_shivani_siroya_tala/s-0068771.html

Back To the Roots
Alumni in the News

Man Who Survived a Terrorist Kidnapping, Cancer and The Bachelorette Becomes Successful Mushroom Entrepreneur

In 2009, Alejandro Velez had overcome a lot of obstacles to get where he was. The then senior at UC Berkeley had survived being kidnapped by terrorists while growing up in Medellín, Colombia, had beaten cancer and was just a few months away from beginning a lucrative career on Wall Street.
http://people.com/human-interest/man-who-survived-a-terrorist-kidnapping-cancer-and-the-bachelorette-becomes-successful-mushroom-entrepreneur/

Alumni in the News

Maine Maritime athletes to wear 100 percent recycled, organic uniforms

“Atayne was immediately attractive to us for a variety of reasons,” Maine Maritime Director of Athletics Steve Peed said in a news release. “Obviously we get to feel good about using 100 percent recycled products, but as a public institution, we have an opportunity to keep business in Maine through a Brunswick-based company that employs people in Maine and around New England.”
http://bangordailynews.com/2017/01/12/sports/maine-maritime-athletes-to-wear-100-percent-recycled-organic-uniforms/

Alumni in the News

Confronting the Last Mile Problem in the Developing World

After her first trip to India, she decided to return with a plan to address this problem. As a graduate student at MIT, Rajasingh traveled to India two more times to conduct research through MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives (MISTI) and her thesis focused on the gap between making technologies and getting them to Indian villages. A tip from her thesis reader, Media Lab lecturer Joost Bonsen, connected her to a Harvard student that was cross-registered in one of his classes, Jackie Stenson who shared her passion and they came up with the idea for their company over lunch at Mass. Avenue’s Flour Bakery.
https://alum.mit.edu/slice/confronting-last-mile-problem-developing-world

Alumni in the News

Analyzing the battery debate

As a string-trimmer operator during high school and college, Zack Kline says he got tired of the trimmer’s noise, fumes and gas consumption. So, he sought an alternative. He’s been operating battery-powered equipment since 2011—using Stihl for about the past four years—and says it’s come a long way since then.
https://www.landscapemanagement.net/the-battery-debate/

Alumni in the News

Saathi: Healthcare startup makes biodegradable pads from banana fibre

Saathi – – an Ahmedabad-based startup founded by three Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduates — Amrita Saigal, Grace Kane and Kristin Kagetsu, has developed a biodegradable sanitary pad made from banana fibre for the Indian market. “Last year, we filed for a patent. The product has been developed in India and we started manufacturing in our own unit at Ahmedabad from October.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/startups/saathi-healthcare-startup-makes-biodegradable-pads-from-banana-fibre/articleshow/56363299.cms