Troy, N.Y. — Three student submissions were recently honored as winners of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s “Change the World Challenge” idea competition for spring 2007. Created in 2005 by Rensselaer alumnus Sean O’Sullivan ’85, the competition is intended to support entrepreneurship education and inspire ideas to improve the human condition by providing a $1,000 cash award for ideas that will make the world a better place. 

Each semester, students — as individuals or in teams — select a topic from a list of challenges to use science and/or engineering to improve human life, and offer an innovative and sustainable solution to that challenge. Examples of challenges from this competition include improving firefighter and farmer safety, and addressing clean water and housing issues in developing nations. Submissions are judged on both novelty and feasibility, and up to 10 entries each semester are selected to receive an award. 

The winning ideas from the spring 2007 competition are:

• a wireless heart monitoring system designed to immediately alert the ground crew in the event that a firefighter suffers a heart attack, developed by Laura Beyer, Joanna Gibson, Chad Munkres, Alex Stroshane, and Cynthia Tang. Cardiac arrest is the number one cause of death in fire rescues.
• an interconnecting design for the bottles used to transport water to citizens in developing nations, created by Sara Finkbeiner, Emmeline Gilbert, Matthew Naples, and Peter Zummo. Empty bottles could be interlocked to construct furniture or shelter areas, according to the group.
• a mechanically or solar-powered device to split cocoa pods in Ghana, the world’s largest producer of cocoa, developed by Shannon Burns, Kevin O’Brien, Daniel Rodrigo, Svetlana Tancheva, Anthony Travaglini, Mark White, and Peter Zummo. Seventy percent of Ghanaian children between the ages of 5-9 are engaged in agriculture, and of that 32 percent have reported work-related injuries — including severed limbs — due to the hazards associated with splitting the cocoa pods.

Three teams of students — responsible for inventing a hand-powered needle sterilization device, a mechanical oven, and a dual-function cocoa bean processor — were each awarded $100 and honorable mention in this semester’s competition.

Winners of the fall 2006 and the spring 2007 competition will be recognized during a special event at the end of the school year. Additional financial support will be given to students in recognition of the winning ideas that are considered the “best of the best.”

“The Change the World Challenge competition challenges students to identify a need — not a want — and come up with a viable solution that will have a significant positive impact on the lives of individuals or a community,” said Robert Chernow, vice provost for entrepreneurship at Rensselaer and chair of the competition. “I congratulate this group of competition winners for their innovative, exciting, and inspiring ideas. They each truly have the potential to change the world.” 

O’Sullivan earned a B.S. in electrical engineering from Rensselaer, and was a founder and the first president of MapInfo, a global software company headquartered in Troy, N.Y. He has started a number of other companies and organizations, including JumpStart International, an engineering humanitarian organization headquartered in Atlanta, Ga. 

In October 2006 O’Sullivan donated $2 million toward the Institute’s $1.4 billion Renaissance at Rensselaer: The Campaign for Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to fund the Rensselaer Center for Open Software, an initiative that will support the development of open software solutions to promote civil societies in the United States and across the globe.

About the Campaign
Renaissance at Rensselaer: The Campaign for Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, launched in 2004, fuels the Institute’s strategic Rensselaer Plan, and supports groundbreaking interdisciplinary programs which have at their core the technologies driving innovations in the 21st century: biotechnology, nanotechnology, information technology, and experimental media. The campaign aims to build the Institute’s unrestricted endowment, and also seeks funds for endowed scholarships and fellowships, faculty positions, curriculum support, student life programs, and athletic programs and facilities. To date, the effort has raised more than $1.2 billion.