Student startup places second at global entrepreneurship competition

ASU student startup Solar Stream Innovations won second place in the Idea-to-Product Global Competition (I2P) that took place Nov. 17 in Stockholm, Sweden. This is the second year in a row that an ASU student-led startup from the Edson program has placed in this prestigious international competition.

Solar Stream Innovations is a systems integration company with a patent pending, non-optical solar concentration technology. Their one-of-a-kind solar manifold technology is affordable to install and maintain because it can retrofit widely-used evacuated tube solar water heating systems.

"We were really excited when it was announced we had won second place ... since we had stayed up all night practicing and revising a significant amount of our presentation,” said Jeffrey Lee, founder and CTO of Solar Stream Innovations. “The judges at I2P had a greater technical background than any competition we have ever attended and were in a great position to ask hard questions during the presentation feedback round, which let us hone our presentation and concentrate on our strengths for the championship round.”  

Their winnings included a $5,000 cash prize and valuable international business connections. The I2P Global competition included teams from several countries which competed in three tracks: information technology, energy and life sciences.  

“The I2P Global Competition Swedish organizers were absolutely fantastic in their hospitality – making the competition a once-in-a-lifetime experience. We really have to thank the Edson Student Entrepreneur Initiative for supporting our team and making our attendance at the competition possible,” said Marcus Myers, COO of Solar Stream Innovations.

Solar Stream Innovations sells packaged solar solutions to commercial and multi-dwelling housing providers who desire the renewable benefits of solar energy with a faster return on investment and low-cost back-up power generation.

Solar Stream Innovation’s patent pending solar energy collection unit can generate heat at temperatures approaching 450 degrees fahrenheit. Integrating the solar energy collection unit with a heat to electricity conversion unit allows the innovative startup to generate electricity during the day and to capture heat rejected from the conversion process for water and space heating. At night or on cloudy days, heat can also be supplied for conversion to electricity through burning any combustible fuel, thus allowing on-demand electricity.

Solar Stream Innovations is supported by the ASU Edson student entrepreneur accelerator based at ASU SkySong, the Innovation Center in Scottsdale. The Edson accelerator provides funding, mentoring, and office space that enables students to advance their ventures and is part of the Venture Catalyst. The ASU Venture Catalyst is a strategic unit of ASU’s Office of Knowledge Enterprise Development, the research arm of ASU.