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Three ErieHack Finalists From Cleveland

By April 25, 2017No Comments

Three teams from Cleveland are finalists in ErieHack, a competition to promote technological innovation in environmental solutions with a business twist. The first-place winner of the competition, which is sponsored by the Cleveland Water Alliance, will receive $50,000 in cash and in-kind assistance.

Competitors had to submit innovative ideas to improve the environmental health of Lake Erie and surrounding communities. Preliminary competitions in several cities have come to a close, and the top ten finalists will compete during a water summit in Cleveland on May 2 and 3.

The three advancing Cleveland teams include:

WaterWarriors: Tackling algal blooms. This University of Akron team has proposed using middle and high school students to create an open-source data map of nutrient loading around the lake. Students would be sent to collect water samples from the lake or watershed, which, when put in a spectrometer, would create colored readings on phosphorus and nitrogen levels. These readings would be uploaded to the map.

Hydrosense: also tackling algal blooms. The Hydrosense team wants to construct a wireless, solar-powered buoy that will collect data for algal bloom forecasting. The buoys will be able to connect to an app, and will measure concentrations of harmful toxins in algae, as well as water temperature and turbidity. It will help the public determine more quickly whether a beach is safe for swimming.

Fish.IO.AI:
tackling fish identification. This group of Progressive Insurance employees aims to develop technology that will allow fishers to take a photo of their catch and upload it to a website, which will then identify the fish, regulations pertaining to the fish, and whether the fish is invasive and should not be returned to the lake. This would be the first fish-related database of its kind.

To lean more about the finalists and final competition, visit: eriehack.io/.