An outdoor air filter, a wall that stores rainwater and an all-terain wheelchair won the North American division of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Innovation Showcase (ASME ISHOW USA). ISHOW announced the three winners selected from a group of six social ventures in the Americas that pitched their solutions at the end of July. The winners will receive a share of (USD) $30,000 in grant awards and technical support to help bring their innovations to market.
The 2024 ASME ISHOW USA regional winners are:
AirVitalize Innovations (Fairbanks, Alaska, and Los Angeles, U.S.) for its “Vita 1.0” – that captures outdoor particle air pollution to improve public health and the environment
EKO GROUP H2O+ COLOMBIA (Bogota, Colombia) for its “EKOMURO H2O+” – Crafted from recycled and repurposed materials, designed to store rainwater, effectively providing sustainable access to safe water in communities previously devoid of it
Participant Assistive Products (San Francisco, U.S.) for its “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.
“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/CEO Tom Costabile. “These programs are key components of ASME’s sustainability and climate strategy, aligned with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.”
The 2024 ISHOW cohort will be invited to the annual ISHOW Bootcamp in the winter to receive a customized design and engineering review by experts curated 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.
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, 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.
The ISHOW hardware accelerator is open to people taking physical products to market 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 30 innovators with experts to ensure that their proposed solutions are technologically, environmentally, culturally, and financially sustainable. To date, ISHOW has enabled over 230 startups from more than 35 countries to solve quality-of-life challenges in 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.
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 join the ISHOW 2024 cohort.
In 2022, 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 impactful hardware concepts from the pre-prototype stage. IDEA LAB participants receive assistance and seed grants in bringing their concept to the prototyping stages of product development. Applications for IDEA LAB are open year-round and reviewed on a rolling basis.
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 adapted from an ASME ISHOW press release. Read the press release at thisishardware.org/press.
