Georgia Institute of Technology School of Civil and Environmental Engineering

A year ago, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering seniors Samantha Becker and Shannon Evanchec were convinced they could change lives in rural villages around the globe. They were about to sell InVenture Prize judges on their antimicrobial cup and lotus flower, which uses copper to kill germs in household water in places like India where contamination with E. coli and other microbes is a significant problem. Now Becker and Evanchec have graduated, and they’re working full-time to turn their creation into a business they call TruePani.

For something like 900 million people in India, access to clean water isn’t the problem. It’s keeping that water clean once it reaches households. A team of civil and environmental engineering and business administration students have invented a system to fight bacterial growth. They compete for the InVenture Prize March 16.