The winners on the Intel Global Challenge from Silicon Valley

Intel is throwing their weight behind new technology and great ideas with its Intel Global Challenge. Young entrepreneurs from around the world are able to submit their startup ideas and stand a chance to take home the main prize of $50 000. Sam Wright, went over to the US to get a first-hand account of what young entrepreneurs get up when there is such a large prize on the line. This is her report:

Following regional competitions in more than 60 countries, 28 semi-finalists were invited to Silicon Valley for one week to present their ideas to some of the most respected and revered Venture Capitalists and technology brains in the world, including vice president and general manager of New Business initiatives at Intel, Jerry Bautista and Keval Desai from Interwest Partners.

The 2014 Intel Global Challenge winner is Lab4U. One of my favorites. A mobile and web-based app that turns your smartphone into a Science lab. The app utilizes your phone’s GPS, display, and the like to create educational Science experiments that are measurable in real-time. Imagine the benefits of an app like this in South African classrooms that don’t have the resources to set up a Science Laboratory. Samsung has partnered up with this innovative start-up to distribute phones and tablets to schools utilizing the app (thus solving the problem of device affordable). Microsoft BizSpark has also partnered up with Lab4U as well so we can expect some big things from these guys in the future.

While the winner’s innovative idea is rather cool, all 8 finalists offer up some incredible tech initiatives. Take a look at these great ideas:

Karisma Kids (http://karismakidz.co.uk/) is a mobile platform pumped fill of children’s games…. heard it before? Well yes, there are a host of kids’ apps on the market that improve general IQ and education. But Karisma Kids is somewhat different in that it promotes EQ in the child. With an increase in tech-savvy kids the one fear of most parents is the possibility of their youngsters failing to communicate with their peers. That’s the problem Karisma Kids aims to solve.

Odysessy Sensors (http://www.odysseysensors.com/) out of the UK is all about shrimp farming… why does this matter? The Shrimp Aquaculture market in Southeast Asia is over a million farms and there are approximately 100 000 Australian livestock farmers. The company developed an affordable sensor for low-income farmers (not the big corporates) that measures salinity which in turn reduces environmental damage caused by saltwater infusion into groundwater. In English? Less dead shrimp means more money for the smaller guys – they have access to the same resources and tools as the big guys.

When someone suffers Acute Brain Damage the most critical time to ensure the minimal injury is directly after the injury. Whether it is a stroke, car accident or cardiac death, you want to cool down the brain asap. Yes, read that again and yes, there is a way to cool down the brain. Neuron Guard (http://neuronguard.com/#home) has created a collar that can be placed in the victim immediately and it cools down the blood running to the brain reducing a form of hypothermia and in turn decreasing the risk of serious injury. Imagine if this innovative new collar was standard equipment in an ambulance along with a defibrillator?

Servtech (http://www.servtech.com.tw/en) is another business solution specifically aimed at the manufacturing industry. Servtech produced an online portal called Servolution, which is a cloud-based server that utilizes a piece of hardware called Servbox that collects data from machines before translating it into workable data for factory workers. There are a host of apps that can be applied to the software to determine what data needs to be correlated and managers can even send queries to Servolution and receive answers based on the data received from the machines.

Buzzoole (http://www.buzzoole.com/) from Italy is a bit like our local Webfluential platform. I loved how they present the idea “we’re not saving the world but we’ll make our customers happy.” Basically they find brand ambassadors who they then work with to create paid-for digital campaigns. There is also an influencer finder for brands and there is the possibility for the customer or brand to measure the results of their paid-for campaigns via the Buzzoole platform.

MOMKIN (http://momkin.me/) was born in Bahrain. The CEO is a physiotherapist and got tired of old physiotherapy techniques and how many offered huge room for human error. No biggie, she created STAMINA, a mechanical device that allows the patient to practice active or active-assisted movements of the hip, knee, and ankle joint while lying in a supine or semi-recumbent position. The impressive part about this is that STAMINA does not require a power source or run off batteries and was invented by Amina al-Hawaj when she was only 19. She’s 24 now!

SmartVineyard (http://smartvineyard.com/)is set to revolutionize the protection of crops and ensuring I have more wine in my glass. Starting with grape crops – the company provides precision sensors that can be utilized by big or small farmers to identify and stop crop disease before it spreads. The application can, in the future, be reworked to be used on other crop types as well.