Cementing success
Judging by history, an MIT-student startup company called C-Crete Technologies, which won this week’s finals of the annual student-run MIT $100K Business Plan Competition, stands a good chance of beating the odds to become a successful business. But history also suggests that some of the other finalists who didn’t win the big prize might end up doing just as well, or even better.C-Crete, started by MIT doctoral student in Civil and Environmental Engineering Rouzbeh Shasavari and MIT Sloan School of Management MBA candidate Natanel Barookhian, is based on discoveries made last year at MIT about the molecular structure of cement. The production of cement accounts for more than 10 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, the team members say, and the new nano-engineered type of cement they developed could reduce that by half, could ultimately save as much energy as would be produced by 100 large nuclear power plants...