ASME ISHOW Kenya was held at The Royal Orchid Azure, Nairobi, on Thursday, May 10,2018. The annual global competition organized by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) provides a platform for social innovators to showcase their innovations for funding.
8 out of the 150 hardware based social ventures that applied worldwide pitched at the event. Out of the 8, the judges settled on Bentos Fuels, Smart Brooder and Biogas Milk Chiller to defend their hardware innovations in the global competition.
Ishmael Hezekiah’s Bentos Fuels produces smokeless charcoal briquettes through recycling harvested water hyacinth and mixing it with paper sludge and charred waste biomass.
George Chege’s winning Smart Brooder is an environmental controller that assists farmers by ensuring the conditions within the chicken brooding space are kept within optimal levels.
The Biogas Milk Chiller founded by Samuel Castro helps farmers who are off the grid to store, deliver, and sell the highest possible quantity of milk.
The three social ventures will share the $500, 000 prize together with the winners of the ISHOW events in Bengaluru, India and Washington DC. Aside from the seed grant, ASME will also offer technical assistance, design and engineering reviews with access to the vast partnership network owned by ISHOW.
This year, ASME ISHOW partnered with The Lemelson Foundation, Villgro India, Villgro Kenya, Engineering for Change, Gearbox, Form labs and Catapult Design.