Global Venture Challenge
2 – 4 April 2008

Paul Shearing, Edward Brightman, Darren Chadwick

Three students from Imperial College were selected in February to compete in the Global Venture Challenge 2008, an educational event designed to foster entrepreneurial spirit and encourage students to launch new technology-based businesses in the fields of Bioenergy, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energies.

Paul Shearing and Edward Brightman from the Department of Earth Science and Engineering, and Darren Chadwick from the Department of Environmental Policy, made the journey to Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee, USA, in the first week of April to compete for the potential top prize of $25,000 in the “Idea to Product” competition. Fourteen teams took part in the semi-final round, and six were to advance to the final.

The Imperial College team presented their “RangeTech” idea for a novel early market application of solid oxide fuel cells to a panel of judges that included venture capitalists, patent attorneys and leading CEOs of energy businesses.

The first day consisted of a feedback round, designed to help refine the presentation and give everyone the best chance in the competition phase. This was followed by an introduction to ORNL and an illuminating talk from its new director, Dr. Thomas Mason, highlighting the need for innovation and development in energy technology for securing a sustainable energy future. The day finished with a tour of the enormous supercomputing capabilities available at the laboratory and a barbecue for all the competition participants. The staff were very friendly and keen to encourage potential internship applicants – ORNL is expanding rapidly and they seem to be on a major recruitment drive.

The second day kicked off with the competition rounds. The RangeTech team were up first in their division, so were able to watch the other teams’ presentations before the central lunch of the event. This featured the keynote speaker K.R. Sridhar, CEO of Bloom Energy and a leading “green energy” entrepreneur. He gave a highly motivational presentation encouraging leadership in environmentally-friendly business ventures, and shed some light on his own intriguingly secretive enterprise. Bloom Energy is focussing on distributed energy utilising solid oxide fuel cells and is promising to have a disruptive effect on the energy marketplace.

After lunch the successful teams were announced, two from each division, who would make up the six finalists. Unfortunately the Imperial team were not selected to progress to the grand final. However, there was plenty of further opportunity for networking with the other teams and venture capitalists who had been invited to the Energy Venture Showcase part of the event in the afternoon.

The grand final on Friday resulted in the University of Tennessee team “Volantis” winning the $25,000 grand prize for their superhydrophobic ship hull coating technology.

The Imperial team were very fortunate to have a further, comprehensive tour of the ORNL facilities. This was arranged by Oakridge staff specifically for the Imperial delegates as part of their AtlanTICC alliance outreach programme.

The tour was a fantastic opportunity to visit the wide range of facilities available at Oakridge and to discuss research with leading academics and scientists. The tour included a visit to the microscopy suites of the High Temperature Materials Lab, where we were able to view platinum matrices with angstrom resolution. In the Centre for Nano Phase Materials we were able to view their impressive clean-room Nano-fabrication labs.

The undisputed highlight of the tour was a visit to the new $1.4 billion spallation neutron source; the source is currently in the commissioning stage, an exciting time for scientists at Oakridge to realise the fruition of many years’ work.

The AtlanTICC alliance provides a fantastic opportunity for collaboration with a laboratory with unrivalled facilities. The size of the Oakridge site is remarkable and the array of cutting edge technologies is certainly inspiring.

The Imperial College, RangeTech team would like to thank the AtlanTICC alliance for their support in attending the Global Venture Challenge, Tara Marlow from Tech 2020 at Oakridge for her logistical support and Dr. Andrew Payzant of the ORNL.