The Y-Prize Competition kicked off this week with a well-attended event held in Steinberg-Dietrich Hall. Now in its fifteenth year, the Y-Prize challenges students to hone their entrepreneurial skills by creating business plans using cutting-edge technology developed at Penn Engineering. The team that comes up with the most promising commercial application wins up to $15,000 to bring their idea to life.
During the kickoff event, Penn Engineering professors Mark Yim, Marc Miskin, and Matt Campbell introduced the technologies that will be featured in this year’s competition. Valentina Goutorova, Senior Associate Director of Innovation Ecosystems at the Mack Institute, offered insights on the resources available to participating students. Finally, representatives from last year’s winning team CarboWells, who proposed a 3D-printed concrete well plug designed to reduce failure rates in abandoned oil and gas wells, shared their experience with the competition and navigating Penn’s startup ecosystem.
This year’s technologies are 1) a method for microscopic devices to communicate wirelessly using reflected light, and 2) a lightweight and low-cost muscle-like actuator for next-generation robotics and electromechanical systems. They were developed in the labs of Professors Marc Miskin and Mark Yim, respectively.
If you’re interested in participating in this year’s competition, there’s still time to get involved! Check out the website for more information, and use this collaborative document to find teammates.