PoE’s own Christina Heinlen, was a member of the ‘Voltaic’ team, which won the grand prize at this year’s Environmental Innovation Challenge! Congratulations!
Christina is a double major with PoE and Business. Her team developed an electric vehicle drive train that can be scaled to allow automotive companies to produce electric models of their current gasoline vehicles. As winners of the competition’s grand prize, the team won $10,000!
The team was featured on the front page of the Seattle Times’ Business Section on April 1.
The event, produced by the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship in collaboration with Foster School of Business, College of Engineering, College of the Environment, and the UW Center for Commercialization, welcomed 17 student teams—representing the University of Washington, Seattle Pacific University, Washington State University, Western Washington University, University of British Columbia, University of Utah, Shoreline Community College, and Lake Washington Technical College. Their ideas ranged from designing and building airships and complex carbon fiber components for vehicles, to a unique solution to bicycle storage and a wind power generator that creates electricity through the movement of a pair of wings. The students came from business, engineering, environment, forest resources, built environment, public policy, and arts and sciences, and they all share a commitment to developing the innovations needed to accelerate the clean-tech economy.