News Low-cost E. Coli Test Wins 2018 MIT Water Innovation Prize
April 24, 2018
Congratulations to the winners of the 2018 MIT Water Innovation Prize! The prize, organized by the MIT Water Club and co-sponsored by J-WAFS, is a startup competition that attracts student teams from around the US. Nine student teams competed for $30K in awards.
This year’s 1st place Winner was the company Oasis, founded by Arjun Bir, an undergraduate at Georgia Tech. Bir is developing a low-cost, novel and simple device that enables anyone to test water for E. coli contamination.
In second place were two startups: Majik Water and Velaron. Majik Water was founded by a group of women from Kenya, the UK, and Canada, who met in Silicon Valley and are developing a desiccant-based air-water harvester that will provide drinking water in arid regions. Velaron is a company led by an MIT PhD candidate in nuclear engineering that is creating a smart sensor system to allow aquaculture shrimp farmers to prevent die-offs related to water nutrient levels.
The winners were selected by a panel of judges from MIT, J-WAFS’ Research Affilitate Xylem, Inc., as well as Watts Water Technologies and the New England Water Innovation Network, reviewed the teams’ pitches and pre-submitted business plans to select the three winners. It was an inspiring night filled with ideas on how to tackle the world’s most pressing water challenges, and an opportunity for water professionals from the Boston area to convene and talk about the trends shaping the future of water.
For more about the prize, read this April 2018 MIT News article.
Water Innovation Prize Pitch Night Details
The Water Innovation Prize pitch and award night, on April 4th, 2018, featured keynotes from Minhaj Chowdhury, Co-founder and CEO of Drinkwell, and Debra G. Coy, partner at XPV Water Partners. During his keynote speech, Minhaj shared his three keys to innovating in the water sector:
- Does our “disruptive” innovation have non-disruptive adoption?
- Do we understand our stakeholder ecosystem, and the various budgets and profit pools?
- Does everyone win in the value chain?
Later, Debra spoke about the trends she foresees shaping the future of the water sector, including decentralization, sensors & smart infrastructure, real-time data analytics, and AI.
Following the keynote were pitches by nine student teams:
Aclarity has created an electrochemical water purification technique that offers clean, safe and reliable drinking water to residential homeowners.
Arrecife Energy Systems is building a wave energy capture system using a horizontal floating platform with cross-flow turbines.
Attis Agtech is a precision-ag company growing livestock feed using 100x's less water.
Divaqua has developed a family of novel polymers that can selectively remove toxic contaminants from water for the water treatment industry.
Majik Water wants to harvest drinking water from air in arid regions using a desiccant system.
Oasis is developing a low-cost, novel and simple device that enables anyone to test water for E. coli contamination.
Refill by Studio30 has designed a simple, inexpensive water bottle refilling retrofit device to promote reusable water bottles.
Velaron wants to create a smart sensor system for aquaculture farmers in the shrimp industry.
ZwitterCo is developing a nanofiltration unit to purify wastewater in oil & gas production and reduce or eliminate their cost of disposal.