Student projects win $50,000 in grants
Student entrepreneurs at Harvard have won $50,000 in grants to support further development of innovative ventures in the Harvard College Innovation Challenge (I3). Five teams were selected as winners and runners-up from an applicant pool of 84 teams — double the number of hopefuls in last year’s contest — for projects ranging from social web applications to a new environmental engineering technology. “This was our most competitive year ever,” says Paul Bottino, co-founder and executive director of the Technology & Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard (TECH), which is based at the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS). “We had 222 students from over 30 concentrations submit outstanding proposals, which makes for a very difficult selection process. All the semifinalists should be proud.” The grants were announced at the I3 Student Startup Showcase and Awards Reception on March 8 inside the Radcliffe Gym, where 26 semifinalist teams discussed their nascent projects with a mingling...