Top 5 Teams Advance To Invent For The Planet Championship

Five Invent for the Planet teams are one step closer to becoming world champions. The Engineering Entrepreneurship Program announced the top five winners after judges around the world deliberated.

The winning teams are Team Hail No from Texas A&M University, Team Haildom from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Team SuperSocial from Swansea University, Team SIPS from James Madison University and Team Tupa, which was a collaborative effort between Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro and Centro Federal de educação Tecnológica Celso Suckow da Fonseca.

These teams will travel to College Station for a showcase and final competition April 23-24. The first-place team will win $3,000, second place will win $2,000 and third place will win $1,000. All other first place teams from participating universities are invited to attend the showcase and compete in a people’s choice category.

Learn more about the five final Invent for the Planet teams:

• SIPS, James Madison University, Virginia
• Haildom, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
• Hail No, Texas A&M University
• SuperSocial, Swansea University, Wales
• Tupa, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro and Centro Federal de Educação Tecnológica Celso Suckow da Fonseca, Brazil

Invent for the Planet is a global intensive design competition hosted by the College of Engineering at Texas A&M. In its second year the competition doubled in size, welcoming teams from 26 other universities in 16 countries. For 48 hours last month, the sun never set on innovation as more than 600 students collaborated virtually to solve some of the biggest challenges facing our planet. Using Microsoft Teams, students were able to share ideas and ask experts questions as they created prototypes.

“Being a part of this experience was incredibly inspiring,” Engineering Entrepreneurship Program Director Rodney Boehm said. “Invent for the Planet evokes the spirit of collaboration and selfless service that Aggies are known for, and in this case, the results could be far-reaching.”

There were 16 challenges in all, ranging from finding ways to provide access to clean water to designing methods for personalized learning. Need statements were provided by industry partners with USAID, the National Academy of Engineering and Airbus, as well as from Texas A&M.

Last year, the first-place team from Texas A&M collaborated with the second-place team from Myanmar to create an inexpensive light source that would allow children to study after dark in developing countries. Their idea is now close to being implemented in Myanmar.