Eight Local Inventors Selected to Compete in Bengaluru April 27

Eight Local Inventors Selected to Compete in Bengaluru April 27 in First Global Competition Seeking Hardware with a Social Purpose

Water-Borne Disease, Neo-Natal Health, Food Safety & Women’s Hygiene Among Causes Tackled by These 2017 ASME ISHOW Finalists

NEW YORK, April 12, 2017 – The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), the world’s largest organization for the field of mechanical engineering, today announced the finalists of the 2017 ASME Innovation Showcase (ISHOW), the first international competition of hardware-led social innovation.

Eight social-minded inventors from India, Indonesia, and Hong Kong will present their design prototypes in Bengaluru. They are among 24 finalists who’ll compete in India, Kenya, and the United States over the coming months. Here’s a link to the eight finalists who'll be available with their prototypes from 8:30-10:00am April 27 at Le Méridien Bangalore: 

https://thisishardware.org/competition/2017/india

An esteemed panel of judges will choose three hardware designs per country as grand prize winners. This year, ASME received more than 150 submissions vying for the $500,000 in cash and in-kind prizes that the organization has offered to help bring these socially innovative hardware-led solutions to market.

“ASME originally created ISHOW three years ago after our research showed a tremendous lack of support for hardware innovators seeking to enter global markets and make a societal impact,” said K. Keith Roe, president of ASME. “With this year’s entries among the most promising we’ve seen since ISHOW first launched, we’re confident they all have the potential to address some of the most vexing issues faced by mankind.”

The 2017 ASME ISHOW will feature a range of devices that promise to make a transformational economic, environmental, and social impact in underserved communities around the world. During the competition, the finalists will pitch their product prototypes to a panel of judges that include successful entrepreneurs, academics, and founders of venture-funded startup companies. The pitches will outline the engineering design attributes of the prototypes and also include a discussion of plans for manufacturing, implementation, marketing, and financing.

The winners selected in Bengaluru and two other ISHOW events in Nairobi, Kenya (May 25), and Washington, D.C. (June 22), will share $500,000 in seed grants, technical assistance, design and engineering reviews and access to ISHOW’s partnership network. “ASME congratulates all finalists,” noted Roe.  “We celebrate their new ideas and innovations, which are pushing our collective knowledge frontier outward and solving problems to improve the lives of all people.” For more information about the finalists and the ISHOW, please visit: ThisIsHardware.org

Contacts:
Deborah Wetzel
Media Relations Manager
The American Society of Mechanical Engineers
212.591.7085
wetzeld@asme.org

Peter Himler
Flatiron Communications LLC (for ASME)
Google Voice: 516-308-1120
Twitter: @peterhimler
phimler@flatironcomm.com

Isabelle Jetté
McPherson Strategies (for ASME)
(m) 312-636-6390
isabelle@mcpstrategies.com