Purdue Names ‘Big Idea Challenge’ Winners

Discovery Park image courtesy of Purdue University.

Purdue University Discovery Park officials have announced seven winners of the Big Idea Challenge. The program supports teams of Purdue faculty and students pursuing solutions for global health, security and sustainability issues.

Purdue says approximately $2 million will be invested in winning concepts over the course of two years.

Discovery Park says more than 230 participants submitted 46 proposals. Last month, 16 were selected to pitch their ideas to a panel of judges made up of faculty members, as well as industry and academic leaders. The five main areas of research the program focuses on are: global sustainability, global health, data science, nanotechnology and defense. Judges made their determinations based on long-term viability, policy and ethics.

Discovery Park Chief Scientist and Executive Director Tomás Díaz de la Rubia says "the quality of the teams and the compelling nature of these proposals made the decision very hard. It has been phenomenal watching these new partnerships evolve. These proposals will catalyze and enable brand new areas of research to address some of the biggest problems facing our world today,"

The winning team concepts are:

"Affordable Net Zero Housing and Transportation Solutions"

"Harnessing Technology and Information Fusion to Enable Resilient and Sustainable Food-Water Balance under Evolving Environmental Conditions"

"Managing the Global Commons: Sustainable Agriculture and Use of World’s Land and Water Resources"

"Revolutionizing Control of Vector-Borne Infectious Diseases"

"Photonics Science and Technologies for Security, Energy and Healthcare Applications"

"Realizing Next-Generation Smart Manufacturing"

"Towards Cyber-Physical Vetting of Critical Infrastructures

Winners could receive up to two years of funding and Discovery Park says it plans to help teams not selected for funding identify other partners to achieve their goals.

You can connect to more about the proposals by clicking here.