An outdoor air filter, bio-based building panels, a rain and bathwater storing wall and three other innovations are finalists in ASME ISHOW USA. The six technologies and their entrepreneurial innovators are now competing for a share of $30,000 in grant awards and technical support to bring their products to market. ISHOW, which stands for Innovation Showcase, is the global accelerator program for social entrepreneurs developing tangible products – hardware – held annually by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). (ASME is the umbrella organization over Engineering for Change).
The six social ventures from throughout the Americas will pitch their solutions to a panel of judges in a virtual event beginning Tuesday, July 23. Three regional winners will be selected to join the 2024 ASME ISHOW, planned for announcement at a virtual awards ceremony on Thursday, August 1, at noon EST. Register here.
Register now: The virtual ASME ISHOW USA awards ceremony, August 1, Noon EST
The ISHOW USA finalists provide affordable, sustainable hardware solutions to building, energy, healthcare, water, and waste challenges, will vie for a share of $30,000 in grant awards and technical support to help bring their impactful innovations to market.
Introducing the ASME ISHOW USA finalists
AirVitalize Innovations (Fairbanks, Alaska, and Los Angeles, USA) for “AirVitalize technology” that captures outdoor particle air pollution to improve public health and the environment
ALKEMIO (Buenos Aires, Argentina, and San Francisco, U.S.) for their “Selective Molecular Technology” that can selectively extract and separate rare earth elements enabling enhanced cost efficiency and revenue optimization throughout the value chain
Calmura Natural Walls (Vancouver, BC, Canada) for their “Monolithic Biocomposite Building Panel” valorizing waste agroforestry resources to create bio-based building materials that are durable, healthy, and climate-change resilient, enabling architects and builders to create buildings that store carbon and provide healthy and comfortable shelters for many generations
EKO GROUP H2O+ COLOMBIA (Bogota, Colombia) for the “EKOMURO H2O+” water-storing walls crafted from recycled and repurposed materials and designed to store rainwater for sustainable access to safe water in communities previously devoid of it
NiveauUp (Chicago, Ill., U.S. and Taipei, Taiwan) for the “XFC (eXtreme Fast Charging) battery cell manufacturing and digitization platform” that can charge 10 times faster and lasts 3 times longer at high energy density, regardless of the battery’s chemistry.
Participant Assistive Products (San Francisco, U.S.) for their “Cub Wheelchair,” a unique, all- terrain wheelchair for children with cerebral palsy and similar conditions, offering tilt and postural support features, folding to fit in small vehicles, and expanding as the child grows, all at a vastly more affordable cost for families and health insurance systems
The 2024 ISHOW cohort will be invited to the annual ISHOW Bootcamp in the winter to receive a customized design and engineering review to guide them as they scale to market. They will also have a chance to earn a second round of seed grants from ASME. ISHOW winners go on to become part of the ISHOW alumni network, an international community of hardware innovators and stakeholders with access to experts and resources.
“Through the vision and creativity of these talented entrepreneurs and the guidance of expert mentors, ASME ISHOW and IDEA LAB are transforming groundbreaking ideas into market-ready products that improve lives,” said ASME Executive Director and CEO Tom Costabile. “These programs are key components of ASME’s sustainability and climate strategy, aligned with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.”
ISHOW USA is the final regional event of the year. ISHOW India winners were announced April 25 in Chennai, and ISHOW Kenya winners were announced June 20 in Nairobi. Three ventures selected at each event will join the ISHOW 2024 cohort.
ASME ISHOW is open to anyone developing physical products (not primarily software) that will have a positive social and environmental impact and improve the quality of life around the world. Each year, ASME ISHOW matches up to 21 innovators with experts to ensure that their proposed solutions are technologically, environmentally, culturally, and financially sustainable. To date, ISHOW has enabled more than 230 startups from more than 35 countries to solve critical quality-of-life challenges for vulnerable populations worldwide. ISHOW alumni have developed affordable devices to address issues including clean combustion, crop threshing, fetal health, food waste prevention, health diagnostics, safe drinking water, and many more that address the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
ASME ISHOW judges and facilitators include experts in research, sustainability, mechanical engineering and product design, manufacturing, startup financing, supply chain, and business strategy, representing organizations including Bommer.io, CompanyCam, Google, Manhattan College, The Pennsylvania State University, Very Technology, and Vinyard Product Development. These subject matter experts provide technical and strategic guidance based on ISHOW’s five key pillars: customer/user knowledge, hardware validation, manufacturing optimization, implementation strategy, and impact.
ASME is grateful to The Lemelson Foundation for its continued support of the ISHOW with a multi-year strategic investment in the ASME and Engineering for Change ecosystem and to ISHOW implementation partners around the globe. Learn more about ISHOW’s global impact in this dynamic dashboard.
Follow the journeys of ISHOW alumni including GenH, PlenOptika, Himalayan Rocket Stove, SAYeTECH and others here.
This article is based on a press release from ASME ISHOW. Find their press releases at thisishardware.org/press.
