Green Cement Startup Wins MIT $100K Entrepreneur Contest
A startup company comprised of MIT graduates that has created an emissions-reducing, nanoengineered cement won $100,000 in funding to get its business off the ground. Read More
A startup company that has created an emissions-reducing, nanoengineered cement won $100,000 in funding to get its business off the ground.
C-Crete Technologies won the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) $100K Entrepreneurship Competition this week, beating out teams with insulin chewing gum and a silent alarm clock. Aukera Therpeutics, a startup developing a drug to battle Lou Gehrig’s disease won the audience choice prize and $10,000.
C-Crete is comprised of MIT graduates who claim their nanoengineered cement is also stronger than existing materials, in addition to its ability to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. According to the Boston Globe, the startup began as a class project four years ago for Natanel Barookhian, a student in MIT’s Sloan School of Management, and Rouzbeh Shahsavari, a student in MIT’s School of Engineering. {related_content} “For many years, the world has been looking for simple, scalable solutions to reduce the global carbon footprint and limit its impact on the environment,” Barookhian said in a statement Thursday. “We at C-Crete Technologies have developed a method for tackling this issue by targeting the production of cement, one of the most widely used materials on earth, while improving all of its core properties. We believe our technology will make a significant impact on the world, and we look forward to growing a viable, sustainable business to meet these ends.”
The global cement industry is responsible for about 5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, producing roughly one ton of CO2 for ever ton made. Several companies have moved to address cement’s carbon footprint in a variety of ways, such as California-based Calera Corp.’s operation that makes cement by converting CO2 from power plants to mineral carbonate.
Startup Counchange.org was the winner in a new MIT competition called Twitch, based on a hybrid of Twitter and Pitch. The contest pitted entrepreneurs from around to world against one another in presenting their sales pitch of business plan via Twitter using 140 characters or less. Counchange.org received the most re-tweets by the most people for a $500 prize, which they promised to donate to their fans’ most popular charity.
Energy startup C3Nano Inc., which makes thin film coatings for electronic screens, won $200,000 in the MIT Clean Energy Entrepreneurship Competition Tuesday.
Image CC licensed by Flickr user daveparker.
