TruePani wins InVenture Prize People’s Choice Award

Team True Pani: Samantha Becker, civil engineering; Naomi Ergun, business administration; Shannon Evanchec, environmental engineering; and Sarah Lynn Bowen, business administration. (Photo: Fitrah Hamid)
TruePani won $5,000 and the 2016 InVenture Prize People’s Choice Award. The team designed an antimicrobial cup and water storage device that makes drinking water safer. The social entrepreneurs came up with the device after two of the team members traveled across India. The inventors are, left to right: Samantha Becker, civil engineering; Naomi Ergun, business administration; Shannon Evanchec, environmental engineering; and Sarah Lynn Bowen, business administration. (Photo: Fitrah Hamid)
 

The people have spoken. And they think an antimicrobial cup and lotus flower are great ideas.

The cup and lotus are the idea that took Samantha Becker, Sarah Lynn Bowen, Naomi Ergun and Shannon Evanchec to the InVenture Prize Finals March 16. Their team, TruePani, won the People’s Choice Award at the competition and $5,000.

Becker is a civil engineering major and Evanchec studies environmental engineering. They came up with the idea for a cleaner cup during a summer research trip to India.

Their cup, shaped just like the ones found in millions of Indian households, uses a thin coating of copper to kill dangerous microbes like E. coli. They also fashioned a similarly coated metal lotus flower for people to place in their water storage containers.

More than 500 teams started the InVenture Prize competition in September. TruePani was one of six to make it to this year’s finals.

Read more about the finals and about TruePani’s water sanitation system.