Paper Authors

Abstract

NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract

From Idea to Market: A Case Study for Sustainable Innovation*

Daniel Raviv, Brandon Moore and Eiki Martinson Department of Electrical Engineering Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL 33431 E-mail: ravivd@fau.edu 561 297 2773 Abstract

This paper describes an experience of working on a research project at Florida Atlantic University. It is unique in the sense that the working settings are different from an ordinary research project, and the intellectual property agreement is different from a standard university one. We have been working with a private investor and entrepreneur who came with the original idea. He has been very involved in the project with some business, humanitarian and environmental goals in mind in addition to academic interest.

We discuss different aspects of the project as it progressed from inception to commercial promise, intellectual property, the risks involved, technical ups and downs, teaming and communication issues, problem solving, overlapping between academic and non-academic interests, attracting water and electric utilities, and lessons learned. Since the focus of this ASEE section is entrepreneurship, we left the technical description towards the end of the paper.

The project is about a new method for making fresh water using distillation. Low-Cost Vacuum-Based Water Distillation uses naturally available vacuum to operate at low temperature to save energy. Simple and scalable, it can produce pure water for large cities and remote rural villages, for the First World or the Third. The process is estimated to be meaningfully more efficient than existing technologies. It is environmentally friendly, and can be configured to use waste heat from power plants, and can be suited for use in 3rd world countries using alternative energy sources. It is simple to operate and maintain and can be constructed using low-cost “off- the-shelf” components.

• This work has been supported in part by a grant to FAU by Michael R. Levine, Inventor and Entrepreneur.

• Citation

• Format
  • APA
  • APA - LaTeX bibitem
  • MLA
  • MLA - LaTeX bibitem
  • Bibtex
  • EndNote - RIS

Raviv, D., & Moore, B., & Martinson, E. (2007, June), From Idea To Market: A Case Study For Sustainable Innovation Paper presented at 2007 Annual Conference & Exposition, Honolulu, Hawaii. 10.18260/1-2--2085