On Friday at Hyde Park’s Chicago Innovation Exchange, the public got a look at five groundbreaking University of Chicago technologies vying for a piece of the $20 million UChicago Innovation Fund.
Though the Innovation Fund awards grants to startups and technology out of the university approximately twice a year, for the first time they opened up the finalist pitches to the public, allowing the UChicago and greater Chicago community to get a look at some of the ideas and startups the Fund might soon be backing. The Innovation Fund was set up to offer early stage investment in promising tech and startups from UChicago students, faculty, and staff. Previous grant winners include the Array of Things and Reliefwatch.
The final decision for this round won’t be announced until January, but here’s an early look at the technology and startups the Innovation Fund is considering.
AD Up Energy, LLC
Seth W. Snyder and Meltem Urgun-Demirtas, both of Argonne National Laboratory, created this more efficient method for converting food waste into energy, through “a new proprietary additive that enhances anaerobic digester (AD) performance, and decreases cost for upgrading the resulting biogas to natural gas,” according to the CIE. Essentially, they speed up the process and allow for more capacity.