ASME ISHOW 2023 includes three events with the following application deadlines:
February 7 – ISHOW India, open to entrepreneurs in India and the Asia Pacific region
April 14 – ISHOW Kenya, open to applicants in the Middle East and Africa
June 1 – ISHOW USA, open to applicants in the Americas
Apply at thisishardware.org
The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) announced it is accepting applications for the 2023 Innovation Showcase (ISHOW). ASME ISHOW is a contest and accelerator for social entrepreneurs developing tangible, physical products (as opposed to software) with a positive social or environmental impact.
Applicants should have a prototype in hand, and they should be at a stage in which they could benefit from financial and technical support, including access to expert networks that can assist in taking their product to market. Finalists receive product exposure, advice, and technical insights, and they have a chance to earn a share of (USD) $200,000 in seed grants, in-kind support, design services, travel stipends, and marketing and business development assets.
“Social enterprises, now more than ever, need the support of the global impact community,” Iana Aranda, President of Engineering for Change and Director of ASME’s Engineering Global Development sector that houses ISHOW. “Social entrepreneurs around the world, including many ISHOW ventures, are on the frontlines of crisis response and the advancement of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. We are aggressively focused on providing these innovators with accessible platforms for capacity building, expert engagement and co-design of scaling strategies suited for today’s dynamic markets. Ensuring their success is of paramount importance.”
Eight finalists are chosen for each of three regional ISHOW events in India, Kenya and the United States. Three companies selected at each event will join the ISHOW 2023 cohort.
“We are proud to offer a forum for engineering problem-solving that truly improves lives,” Tom Costabile, ASME Executive Director and CEO, said in a statement. “We are continually impressed by the creative talent of ASME ISHOW participants and their passion for helping underserved communities around the world. We look forward to engaging in person with the vibrant engineering community within India when we return to Bengaluru this spring.”
The 2023 ISHOW cohort will be invited to the annual ISHOW Bootcamp in the fall to receive a customized design and engineering review by experts recruited to guide them as they scale to market. They will also have a chance to earn a second round of seed grants from ASME. They become part of the ISHOW alumni network, an international community of hardware innovators and stakeholders with exclusive access to experts and resources
ASME ISHOW annually matches up to 24 innovators with appropriate engineering experts to ensure that the proposed hardware solutions are technologically, environmentally, culturally, and financially sustainable. ASME’s panel of judges and experts includes entrepreneurs, academics, engineers, designers, investors, and industry representatives from leading organizations in India, Kenya, and the United States. These subject-area experts provide technical and strategic guidance based on ISHOW’s four key pillars: customer/user knowledge, hardware validation, manufacturing optimization, and implementation strategy.
Earlier this year, ASME launched the Idea Lab incubator, extending the reach of the ISHOW hardware accelerator platform. With Idea Lab, ASME moves “upstream” to aid budding social entrepreneurs in developing and implementing their social impact hardware concepts from the pre-prototype stage. Applications for the 2023-2024 Idea Lab class will open in summer 2023.
To date, ISHOW has enabled over 200 startups from more than 30 countries to solve critical quality-of-life challenges for vulnerable populations worldwide. ISHOW alumni have developed affordable devices to address key issues related to clean combustion, crop threshing, fetal health, food waste prevention, health diagnostics, safe drinking water, and many more that advance the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
The Lemelson Foundation supports ISHOW with a three-year strategic investment, and ISHOW has support from implementation partners around the globe. Learn more about ISHOW’s global impact in this dynamic dashboard.
Follow the journeys of ISHOW alumni including PayGo Energy, PlenOptika, Himalayan Rocket Stove, SAYeTECH and others here.
This announcement is adapted from a press release by ASME ISHOW.
