What do electricity-producing bugs in porta-potties, portable seatbelts, wind-powered ethanol production, Styrofoam reconstitution, and solar power all have in common? All of those topics, plus several more, were concepts at UMass Amherst’s Innovation Challenge.

Now in its fourth year, the competition heralds a new approach to academic integration of the sciences, engineering, and business. The idea for the competition came from Soren Bisgaard, professor of Technology Management, and Michael Malone, dean of the School of Engineering. Bisgaard and Malone are both endowed professors in the Isenberg Program for the Integration of Management, Engineering & Science, which describes itself as “an integrative approach … using technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship as complementary cross-cutting themes to involve students from the Isenberg School of Management, the Colleges of Engineering and Natural Science and Mathematics, and other schools and colleges” at the university.

Over the course of the past several years, the Isenbergs have made several large donations to UMass; the School of Management and the MBA program at the Amherst campus bear their name. Eugene Isenberg is a leading fuel contractor in Texas, and his wife, Ronnie, has a background in education. When the Isenbergs endowed three professorships (a third chair in Natural Sciences and Mathematics is yet to be filled) at the school, there was an understanding that outmoded ways of using higher education to approach industry needed to be reevaluated. Bisgaard and Malone saw the Innovation Challenge as an excellent forum to put the goals of the Isenberg program into practice, and to give students a practical perspective on life beyond the ivory tower.

Competing teams are at all levels of their education, from undergraduates to students in the final stages of their Ph.D. dissertations. Each team must have at least one member who is a current or recently graduated UMass student. For two timed minutes, the team has the opportunity to present their business and attempt to sell it to a hypothetical potential investor, the classic elevator-pitch model. In this variation, a panel of judges from a variety of fields is the target audience, and they have a short span of a few minutes to ask further specific questions.

Three Going Forward

In the four years of the competition, there have been some interesting inventions and business proposals. One invention that returned to the competition this year came from Engineering student Brycen Spencer, who has developed a GPS system for helmets. Called the Wireless Impact Guardian (WIG), the potential for such a device spans recreational and military applications. Colloquially known as the ‘OnStar for helmets,’ the device will register an impact suffered by the wearer and signal assistance from 911. Because there are close to 100,000 annually reported ATV injuries requiring emergency-room treatment, Spencer hopes his invention will find that market initially. In the military, there is the possibility for a single medic in the field to use the WIG in a triage capacity, determining the number and possibly the extent of soldiers’ injuries.

Returning this year as a member of the audience, Brian Mullen invented an electrically compressing vest designed to give the wearer a ‘portable hug.’ Winner of the grand prize at last year’s final Innovation Challenge, Mullen’s company, Therapeutic Systems, has developed this vest that looks like any other puffy outerwear. However, within the vest lies a technology that mothers have known for centuries, that the act of safe and secure physical pressure can calm the nervous system. The vest is designed primarily to assist in the treatment of autism and children with ADHD.

Also returning this year as a spectator was past winner Alaina Hanlon, a Ph.D. student in Engineering, whose company, Condition Engineering Inc., has devised a method for detecting movements in earthen structures such as rail lines, dams, levees, and other such sites. Essentially an early-warning system for potential disasters, the company looks for its product to replace the existing monitoring methods, which are either carried out by archaic visual site analysis, or are using technology that is too expensive. Set to graduate this spring, Hanlon is expecting to have full time to devote to the company now that her studies will be complete. Several professors at the competition see this company as poised for success, and point to the dire need for such technology, citing the failed levees in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina as a perfect example.

The New Kids on the Block

As might be expected in this digital age, several entrants’ ideas at this year’s competition utilized the Internet as a point of focus. EcoMe is a database for ‘green’ products and services, as well as a Web-based general contractor for people to ‘green’ their homes.

Meanwhile, Localocracy is an Internet platform for social and political groups, essentially a more high-tech variation on e-democracy.com. And rateinternships.com is a search engine of postings and reviews for college students embarking or investigating this time-honored tradition. Reserve the Earth is a search engine for Community Sponsored Agriculture, to assist with both the farms and the membership of the CSA. SPEX is a Realtors’ Web service to provide site-specific energy analysis for homebuyers, involving the use of a high-tech digital camera capable of photographing the energy efficiency of a house. And Widen the Web is a compliance-based service to make Web sites accessible to the visually impaired.

True to the spirit of the Isenbergs’ goals, sciences and technology were also well-represented at the competition. Apera Technology is a venture from four engineering graduate students to devise a wind-powered means of ethanol distillation. PolyRe-Gen has devised a faster and more economical means of breaking down Styrofoam into its constituent parts, available to be reused in production.

QD Tech seeks to license a groundbreaking technology, invented by a UMass professor, to inexpensively manufacture quantum dots, the building blocks of products from photovoltaics to LEDs to optics in the life sciences. Returning competitors from Save a Life have invented a portable, inexpensive seatbelt system, which they hope can penetrate the travel industry.

But this year, the big news was bugs.

Team Bug Power has set out to solve the problem of the less-than-user-friendly portable toilet. As they explained in a presentation that alternated between the technical and the comical, Nikhil Malvankar, Xuan Huang, Dan Li, and Mario Dongo have devised a multiple-patent-pending bacteria that will break down waste in a portable toilet. By means of a simple electro-chemical reaction, the bugs will break down matter in the units, which will create enough electricity to power a light and an exhaust fan. With less servicing necessary for the porta-johns of the world, Bug Power estimates that this is where the profit motivation lies for their invention, forecasting annual savings of $200 million.

Eventually, the company expects to utilize their bugs and technology to apply to septic systems and ultimately the entire wastewater industry. When asked if their bacteria were unique, team member Nikhil Malvankar admitted that there were others, but, based on the ability of this strain to generate five times more electricity and to clear a greater variety of waste, “our bugs are better.”

A Unique Gift

“This is part of a larger system,” said Bisgaard as he waved his hand to recognize a room filled with competitors and audience members. “We have a number of initiatives, and this is one component of trying to help students learn to commercialize technology and to help the university get its technologies into the marketplace. As these students learn some things, the school is learning something, also.”

Malone agrees that the competition is beneficial for both sides of the teaching equation, and devotes no small amount of praise to the Isenbergs and their vision for this academic model. “When these chairs were endowed, we all really collaborated to find out what would be good for the students, but also what would be good for the institution and, hopefully, the region,” he said.

While collaboration might be a new buzzword in certain business sectors, part of the Isenberg legacy is to support such interdisciplinary education, which, according to Bisgaard, is a revolutionary concept in American academia.

“Working in a university is akin to working in a silo, or a smokestack type of system. You really aren’t supposed to talk with your neighboring departments. It’s not good for your career, your chairman won’t be happy. Coming into an endowed chair that says you have to integrate, to legitimize that; it breaks down barriers. This is the unique gift that the Isenbergs have given to this school.”

Malone added, “in the real world outside of the university, there is no engineering without business, and vice versa.”

Starting in January, the university will host the prestigious Advanced Invention to Venture seminar, a four-day event staged under the auspices of the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovator’s Alliance. Part of the prize packages this year were several full scholarships for the event. These teams will have tailored mentors to guide them through coaching and strategy sessions, resulting in a honed pitch to ‘angel’ investors matched to the students’ industries.

Malvankar said after the event that there is so much to do now in going forward, but, for a while, he’s just going to allow himself to be excited at Bug Power’s win.

“After the January mentoring program, we’ll have the chance to focus on the business aspect of our invention. From there it will be interesting to see if we need to do more work on marketing or development. Right now, we all have a lot of schoolwork to finish, though.”

In other words, they still have some bugs to get out — literally.