COLLEGE STATION, Texas — The final for the 'Invent for the Planet' competition was hosted on Thursday at Texas A&M University, with teams competing to see who had the best pitch for their environmentally-friendly inventions.
"We are all human beings looking for solutions that affect human beings in a positive way," Texas A&M Professor of Practice, Shayla Rivera said. "What it says about A&M engineering is that we care. We want to be initiative, not just learn good technology and develop good technology."
Engineering teams from all across the globe were tasked with creating impactful and innovative designs to tackle some of the planet's biggest challenges.
"I think this is a wonderful event because it brings so many different perspectives together, you have teams from all over," H2Grow Member, Rachel Simms said. From Pakistan, Qatar, and then you have people in the United States where it's based. It's really cool getting to meet everybody, and get everyone's different perspective."
Nearly 350 students from 15 countries representing 24 universities first entered the competition in February, but only six teams ended up advancing to the finals.
"The most important thing I think these students should get out of this event is their ability to actually attack problems they're uncomfortable with," Rivera said. "Sometimes we think that something is bigger than we are."
The champion team ended up being H2Grow from Swansea University in Wales. Their project is a multi-way filtration system that uses reverse osmosis technology to make contaminated water usable.
"We are focusing on expanding the growing season in Southeast Asia," H2Grow Member, Matthew Coomes said. "Right now it relies solely on the monsoon season and we've created a multi-layer filtration system to utilize the nearby wastewater that can't currently be used."
H2Grow won a $5,000 grand prize for placing first in the event.