Time Warner Cable Inno/Vention Competition

The Innovation and Invention Student Idea Competition

Competing for grades is one thing. Competing to succeed in the free-market is something all together different.

NYU-Poly’s annual Time Warner Cable Inno/Vention student idea competition gives our budding inventors, innovators, and entrepreneurs a preview of what it takes to develop and refine their ideas into marketable products and services.

Inno/Vention participants begin meeting in the fall semester to brainstorm about their ideas, attend workshops on things such as patent searches and market research, and get one-on-one business coaching from the director of NYU-Poly’s BEST business incubator. In the spring, finalists present their ideas to a panel of judges from industry and academia.

In addition to the commercial viability of their ideas, students are judged on how their ideas impact local, national, and global society. Winners receive cash prizes, and of course, the adulation of their peers.

2009 - 2010 Inno/Vention Is Gearning Up!

Take a look at this year's schedule, submission information, and much more!

2008-2009 Winners

Christopher LoBello (1st Place) — Thermoelectric Alternator

Winning idea: Capture the waste-heat from an automobile’s exhaust, pass it through thermoelectric devices that turn heat into electricity, use the electricity to power the car’s radio, phone charger, and other peripherals.

Benjamin Kanner (2nd Place) — Magnetic Flexible Bridge

Winning idea: Use the repelling force of giant magnets to hold a bridge together. The magnets are attached to pillars at the ends of hinged segments that form a convex-arch bridge.

Michael Hailemariam (3rd Place tied) — Bio-Chill

Winning idea: Take advantage of the chemical properties of DNA to cool electronic devices such as laptops. DNA can be engineered to lose its chemical structure at a selected temperature. As it unwinds, it absorbs heat. Bio-Chill would store DNA designed to lose its double helix at the core temperature in the thermal management system of an electronic device to cool the device’s surface.

Theresa Luback and Raymond Ye’s (3rd Place tied) — DormStop.com

Winning idea: Develop an e-commerce website targeted to college students entering their first year of dorm life where they can buy approved dorm gear.

2007-2008 Graduate Division Winners

Ozgu Alay — Next Generation Battery Charger for Mobile Devices
Winning idea: Recycle kinetic energy produced by the movement of our body, heat energy resulting from body heat, and the heat generated by different sources in our surroundings to charge batteries of mobile devices.

Altaf Hajiyani — Investing in India

Winning idea: Develop a web site that provides news and expert analysis and a structured way for people from around the globe to directly invest in India’s growing economy.

2007-2008 Undergraduate Division Winners

Samir Ajmera, Christopher LoBello & Aung Thant — Carbon Nanotube for Hydrogen Storage

Winning idea: Use specially-designed carbon nanotubes coated with titanium to store hydrogen. The invention, which the team has a provisional patent on, is a solution to many of the problems of storing hydrogen in a gas form to fuel such things as hydrogen cars.