What started as a small idea between colleagues culminated Wednesday with $22,500 in funding for clean-tech solutions to environmental problems. Connie Bourassa-Shaw, director of University of Washington's Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and Dr. Ellen Lettvin, formerly Assistant Director in the Applied Physics Laboratory, conceived the Environmental Innovation Challenge to focus on the intersection of practical solutions to environmental problems and entrepreneurship.

"Unless teams think through the market opportunity, all they’ve come up with is a cool idea. We’re looking for cool opportunities," said Bourassa-Shaw. Sixteen teams of undergraduates to PhD students across disciplines from UW, WSU, SU, Western Washington and the Bainbridge Graduate Institute competed in the challenge.

Initial judging of their business plans took place in early March, and rapid-fire pitching to a sea of clean-tech judges went down on Wednesday. Each team was alloted two minutes and one presentation slide to pitch, and later five minutes to demonstrate a proof-of-concept, prototype or simulation.

Bourassa-Shaw instructed the 75 judges to consider which team held the potential to make the greatest impact in the decision process.

In the end, $10,000 grand prize sponsored by UW TechTransfer went to HydroSense, a home-water monitoring system that calculates real-time water flow, infers the specific source of water activity and automatically detect leaks. The information is transmitted wirelessly to a home computer. HydroSense uses a suite of acoustic and vibration sensors without inline pipe installation to monitor water consumption.

"How can we expect people to conserve water if they're unaware of their consumption?" asked Jon Froehlich, Project lead and doctoral candidate in computer science and engineering, during the pitch.

Seven students comprised the HydroSense team: Tim Campbell, undergraduate in mechanical engineering; Kate Everitt, doctoral candidate in computer science and engineering; Alex Horton, undergraduate in electrical engineering; Jianlei Shi, doctoral candidate in electrical engineering; Rahber Thariani, doctoral candidate in bioengeineering; and Conor Haggerty, undergraduate in environmental planning.

Second place and $5,000 sponsored by Davis Wright Tremaine was awarded to Nanocel, who proposed what they called "turbulent flow technology" to create a convective flow of fluid inside a plastic heat sink to reduce electronic heat.  The company saw void in the electronics cooling market. Reducing heat will reduce electronic failure, leading to less electronic waste. Dustin Miller, doctoral candidate in mechanical engineering and Daniel Rossi, MBA candidate founded Nanocel.

Honorable mentions and $2,500 were awarded to three teams. EcoWell, who proposed to deploy and manage a network of litter-free vending kiosks to reduce plastic bottle waste. The vending kiosks would feature RFID billing systems for prepaid customer accounts and an interactive display screen to derive additional revenue from targeted advertising.

InTheWorks developed a catalytic converter to eliminate more than 99 percent of emissions for gasoline marine engines. Wind2O created a desalination and purification wind-powered product to provide clean, drinkable water to remote communities.

"One judge told me at the end of the day that he was watching the other judges during the 2-minute pitches--and no one was checking their Blackberries," Bourassa-Shaw said, "An odd validation of the level of interest, but one we can relate to!"

Roni Ayalla -- a student in the University of Washington's Master of Communication in Digital Media program -- is a contributor to TechFlash.