On Tuesday, March 1, 2016, the winners of North Dakota State University’s Innovation Challenge 2016 were announced, winning a total of $27,000 in cash prizes.

 

The student projects were divided into four subcategories: Agriculture, Service, Product and Social. Over the course of  about six months, students spitball ideas at a pitch night, form teams, and go through three boot camps to polish their idea.

The first round of voting is held at an open showcase, wherein students present their project and the attendees vote on their favorites. A month later, the final presentations are given to a panel of judges.

The $27,000 is divided among the winners from each track as well as a People’s Choice award: $500 to third place, $1,000 to second place, $5,000 to first place. The hope is that the money will be used to boost the student’s ventures, but there are no restrictions on how the teams spend the money (cough- loans- cough). The People’s Choice award gets an additional $1,000.

Agriculture

First place in the Agriculture track went to a team with a hilarious name, and a colorful mission. Or rather, a de-colorful mission. Team “Clean the Cluck Up” is made up of NDSU students Bonnie Cobb and Joseph Kallenbach, and they are developing a process to take the yellow out of corn-based animal food.

Corn gluten meal (CGM), a high protein animal food, naturally has a bright yellow color and can pigment the meat of the animal who eats it. Because, typically, American consumers don’t like to eat yellow fish or chicken meat, farmers aren’t keen on giving this to their animals.

For their project, Kallenbach and Cobb (who coincidentally was born with a very fitting last name) propose using “enzymatic hydrolysis and superficial fluid extraction” to get rid of that yellow coloring. If it’s not turning animal meat yellow, farmers will buy more of it, consumers will happily eat their non-yellow meat, and the corn millers who make it will certainly be happy too. It’s a win-win.

A win for Kallenbach and Cobb too, as they carted home a $5,000 check after taking first place!

Second place and $1,000 went to Ward Enterprise, for a self-centering device for grain storage designed by NDSU grad student Gary Ward.

Third place went to Meredith Schroeder and ConveySure, for a coating material that could be used on conveyor belts and containers to prevent foodborne illness.

Service

People’s Choice: Opti-M3D, made up of NDSU students Prajakta Kulkarni and Matthew Confeld, took first place for their design that can help treat cancer more effectively. Opti-M3D (pronounced  Opti-MED) is a 3D printed, cell culture apparatus which can help in screening efficacy of various chemotherapeutic agents on tumor cells derived from individual cancer patients. In short: their design can reveal how the patient is responding to chemotherapy, and allow doctors to administer more personalized care.

Opti-M3D not only received first place for the Service track, but landed People’s Choice as well, earning them a total of $6,000 for their work.

In second place was a travel company called Gone Rogue Travel Co., by Meghan Battest, that offers kickstart travel plans for $20.

Third place went to JobFairy, an online application that matches you with the jobs best fit for you, created by Amanda Christianson and Karlie Matejcek.

Product

First place in the product track is a startup we have written about before: Protosthetics, lead by NDSU senior Cooper Bierscheid. Bierscheid designs 3D printed prosthetic devices, specifically a printed artificial limb called PAL. The PAL can be manufactured and sold for less than $10,000, whereas current market products cost anywhere between $25,000 and $100,000.

Bierscheid also received recognition at the awards luncheon for a recent trip he took to Haiti, where he delivered a prosthetic limb to an amputee. Read more here.

Second place went to Advanced Bone Technology, a team lead by Andy Dalman, that is designing an artificial substitute for human bone.

Third place went to T&T Innovative Solutions, lead by Tyler Toepke-Floyd and Tyler Donner, for their design of a foldable ramp built for loading recreational and utility vehicles on to trailers and pickups.

Social

Carbon Negative took first place for the Social Track, a team made up of Jade Monroe, Alexis Steinman, and Jesse Riley. Carbon Negative is true to their name; they have a mission to help communities effectively sequester carbon and save money in the process. The process includes three stages of planting prairie grasses on underutilized public lands, harvesting plants through a biochar process, and third – saving money. In fact, they state, if the city of Fargo were to adopt this system it would see more than a 400 percent return on investment.

Second place went to Petra Reyna One Hawk, for her project of creating a traditional Native American stew that can be made into meal-ready-to-eat (MRE) using local ingredients.

Third place went to KidSmiley, a project by Israt Jahan and Sayeed Sajal, for their non-profit framework to help underprivileged kids from poor families in third world countries – specifically by providing them proper outfits for cultural festivals.

 

Dean Bresciani, who spoke at the beginning of the luncheon, commended all participants for their participation. He recalled a day years earlier, during this time of year, when he first heard of North Dakota State University. Never before had he seen a university with so much impact on the trajectory of an entire state, he said.

“At NDSU we are a part of changing the economic future of a state,” he said. Innovation, he said, is what will keep us moving forward.

 

Photos by Marisa Jackels.