Collegiate Inventors Competition finalists receive cash prizes and mentorship from National Inventor Hall of Fame Inductees.
For the past thirty years, the Collegiate Inventors Competition (CIC) has been inspiring students across the United States. The competition is hosted by the National Inventors Hall of Fame (NIHF). Although NIHF is known for honoring past inventors, a core aspect of its mission is to inspire students to reach their innovative potential. They believe that investing in the next generation of inventors is the key to the United States’ rich history of invention, and key to the country’s competitive advantage.
The CIC is one way that the NIHF supports the next generation of engineers. It is an inventor competition with undergraduate and graduate student divisions. Students can showcase an invention or innovation to a panel of judges. The winning students receive cash prizes and a USPTO acceleration certificate, which helps the students to patent their invention. To date, the competition has awarded over $1 million in prizes to students across the United States.
However, the value of the competition goes beyond the prizes. All of the finalists receive mentorship, networking opportunities and marketing exposure. The students enjoy the chance to learn from the judges, who are all influential inventors and innovators that have been inducted into the NIHF. The students will also get the opportunity to meet people from the United States Patent and Trademark Office and learn more about how to take their idea to the next level.
The 2021 competition was held virtually to comply with public health guidelines for the safety of contestants and judges. But this change did not lessen the impact of the event in the minds of the finalists. Siddharth Thakur, an undergraduate finalist, describes the event: “Though the event was held in an online format this year, listening to the Inductees’ enthralling stories of innovation and entrepreneurship made this competition an unforgettable experience.”
The competition included two rounds of judging. In the first round, the submissions are judged by a panel of scientists, researchers and experts from a variety of disciplines. Each submission is scored, and those scores are used to determine the finalists.
In round two, the finalists meet virtually with the final judging panel to present their inventions or innovations. The final panel of judges includes NIHF inductees, intellectual property experts from the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and Abbott Laboratories, among others. Together, the judges deliberate to choose the final winners.
The competition is open to any full-time or part-time student enrolled in a U.S. college or university during the past school year. This includes non-U.S. citizens, as long as they are a student at an American college or university. If students work in a team, all of the students must meet this criterion. Their invention or innovation must also be eligible for a patent and cannot already hold a patent.
2021 CIC Undergraduate Winner
This year, the undergraduate winner was Eva Cai from Harvard University. Her invention, called EarFlow, can treat middle ear infections in under five minutes without the need to anesthetize the patient. It is a non-invasive device that is placed on the eardrum, which can deliver medication directly into the middle ear.
“I feel incredibly honored and humbled for this recognition,” Cai said in an interview with NIHF. “It was wonderful meeting the Inductees and [CIC] Finalists and learning more about their groundbreaking inventions!”
Her next step is to validate the safety of the new product. The goal is to market EarFlow internationally to provide a low-cost and effective alternative treatment to currently invasive procedures.
Cai will receive a $10,000 cash prize and a USPTO Patent Acceleration Certificate. More importantly, Cai will also receive one-on-one mentorship from an NIHF inductee. This mentorship will help her to learn more about the invention process and learn how to bring EarFlow to market.
Undergraduate Runner Up
The undergraduate category also includes a prize for the runner-up and a People’s Choice award. The runner-up this year was a team from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Teammates Stephen Kalinsky and Jared Meyers’ created a smart device app to help individuals who suffer from limited bladder sensation, a medical condition where individuals cannot feel when their bladder is full. Their invention adds a noninvasive connection between a catheter and catheter valve. The connection includes sensors to monitor bladder levels. This information is then sent to a smart device. It is anticipated that the device could help more than 6.5 million people in the United States alone.
For their invention, Kalinsky and Meyers received a $5,000 cash prize and mentorship from an NIHF inductee. “We’re proud to represent Georgia Tech and all of the people we’ve worked with to get to this stage,” the team said. “We’re also looking forward to building on this success to push forward our mission to help people with spinal cord injuries and other neurological conditions.”
Arrow Electronics People’s Choice Award
The Arrow Electronics People’s Choice Award was awarded to Siddharth Thakur from the University of Texas at Austin. His invention, Firebot, is a thermally insulated, obstacle-climbing robot that is controlled wirelessly. Firebot is designed to map out the interior of a burning building, giving valuable reconnaissance to firefighters to aid in rescuing people trapped inside.
Thakur received a $2,000 cash prize donated by Arrow Electronics, a sponsor of the 2021 event. Like all of the other recipients, he will also be mentored by an NIHF inductee to help him bring his intention to market. “Winning this award empowers me to continue pursuing my passion for bringing this idea to life and is crucial to propelling Firebot from a prototype into the hands of firefighters,” Thakur said. “Inventing allows me to bridge my love of working with my hands and my desire to develop technical solutions to pressing real-world problems.”
2021 CIC Graduate Winner
The 2021 Graduate winner was Shrish Patel from Stony Brook University. His invention, called SolarClear, is a waterless cleaning technology designed to clean dust and debris from solar panels. The technology is especially well-suited to desert climates. It leverages the interaction between the electric field and dust particles to deliver a scalable, economic solution to clean solar panels, which improves the panels’ efficiency.
Patel received a $10,000 cash prize, a USPTO Patent Acceleration Certificate and mentorship from an NIHF inductee. “I am grateful beyond words to win the Collegiate Inventors Competition,” Patel said in an interview with NIHF. “I am so honored, and at the same time humbled, to have my work recognized by NIHF and USPTO. This is both a top personal and professional achievement in my whole career.”
His next step for SolarClear is to create a pilot to test the technology. “The short-term goal is to perform pilot testing of the technology with our industry partners in the solar ecosystem,” explained Patel. “Our long-term goal is to see this technology adopted on a large scale, driving down the cost of electricity from solar panels and making solar power a sustainable energy source.”
Patel noted that the mentorship provided during the competition was very valuable. He was impressed by the questions the panel of judges asked during the competition. The whole process has made a lasting impression and he looks forward to continuing a mentorship with an NIHF inductee.
Graduate Runner Up
The runner-up in the Graduate category is Maha Alafeef for her invention VirSENSE. VirSENSE is a COVID-19 rapid test that is reliable and can be administered at home. The thing that makes this COVID-19 rapid test so remarkable is how early it can detect COVID-19. VirSENSE can detect the coronavirus before a person even develops antibodies.
As a runner-up, Alafeef will receive a $5,000 cash price and mentorship from an NIHF inductee. To bring her invention to market, Alafeef will also need to obtain regulatory approvals. “We are working on receiving all required regulatory and commercial approvals so that our test can be readily available as an off-the-shelf product,” she explained.
“This is a milestone achievement for me, and this recognition will surely help pave my way to continue with my passion for innovating for the benefit of humankind,” Alafeef said.