10,000 Solutions awards $15K in funding at Solutions Showcase

3 teams were awarded funding to advance their innovative solutions

Three student teams were selected Oct. 9 to receive a total of $15,000, distributed among three awards at the 10,000 Solutions Showcase – an event to highlight the cross-section of innovation found on the 10,000 Solutions online platform.

The 10,000 Solutions website was launched by ASU slightly over a year ago to promote collaborative solutions towards local and global challenges. 10,000 Solutions is a signature program of Changemaker Central.

Twenty teams were on display as finalists at the 10,000 Solutions Showcase, selected from the 2,200 solutions currently found on 10,000 Solutions. The 20 teams presented their innovative solutions in a “poster session” format, spread out at tables in the Arizona Ballroom in the Memorial Union on the Tempe campus. Visitors to the event were invited to visit the tables of the finalists, meet the teams and to learn more about their innovative solutions. Attendees could then cast a vote for their favorite solution via texting for the People’s Choice Award. In addition to this award, a Crowdfunding Challenge and Grande Prize Winner award were announced at the event.  

The Grand Prize winner was SafeSIPP – a team that has a designed a system that simultaneously transports and purifies large quantities of water. Executive director and co-founder of the group, Lindsay Fleming, expressed surprise and disbelief as she approached the stage with her teammate, Jared Schoepf. They received the award from keynote speaker, Jaime Casap, and Kaitlyn Fitzgerald, director of the Student Leadership Team.

"This was an incredible opportunity to see ASU innovators turn their passions into positive social change,” Fitzgerald said. In his keynote address, Casap, Senior Education Evangelist at Google, spoke about how Google has developed and maintained an innovative culture. He reminded the audience that ideas can come from anywhere. Speaking specifically about 10,000 Solutions, he said, “10,000 solutions shows that today you don't need publishing or marketing departments. Regardless of who wins these ideas will live and benefit from the buzz tonight."

The People’s Choice Award was chosen through live text voting at the event. An auto-updating graph was projected at the event to keep people abreast of the voting results. By the end of the evening, more than 600 people had voted and had selected 33 Buckets as the winner – a team that is designing a filter that will provide a girls' school in rural Bangladesh with clean water that they can sell to the community in a sustainable microfinance business.

The Crowdfunding Challenge invited finalist to create their own crowdfunding pages on the Indiegogo platform and 10,000 Solutions would then match the top team’s crowdfunded amount, up to $3,000. Balanced Future Remodeling, a team that provides sustainable home remodeling strategies to home remodelers, was able to raise $3,026, bringing their total to $6,026.

Even though not everyone was a winner, 10,000 Solutions has nonetheless helped further a culture of innovation at ASU and in the community. Ed Daie, an ASU alum and founder of finalist, Myjobhop.com, said, "I came up with this idea in 2008, but 10,000 solutions inspired me to make it a reality."

To view the full list of finalists, visit: 10000solutions.org/tags/10KShowcase

Media contact:
Daniil Gunitskiy, dgunit@asu.edu
810-394-1744