Six teams with business concepts that could create a better world will compete in the finals of the Ideas to SERVE (Socially and Environmentally Responsible Value Enhancement) Competition on Wednesday March 16 at Georgia Tech College of Management.

They will present their concepts at a special presentation of the IMPACT Speaker Series, called Students Who IMPACT, at 4:30 p.m. in LeCraw Auditorium (College of Management building). A panel of judges will select the winners, with the awards announced at 6 p.m. The event is open to the public.

Organized by Georgia Tech's Institute for Leadership and Entrepreneurship, the Ideas to SERVE Competition is open to all Georgia Tech students and recent alumni who have an early-stage product/service idea or venture concept that could help solve social issues or sustain the environment.

Finalist teams, representing a variety of disciplines from engineering and architecture to management, will compete for $6,000 in combined prizes. Twenty-six teams (including both graduate and undergraduate students) competed in the preliminary round on March 10.

During the finals, each team will have three minutes to present their ideas, and then will answer questions from the judges. Winners will be announced at 6 p.m. Attendees can vote on their favorite idea and will be eligible for various door prizes.

"This competition fills a niche that's very valuable, not only to the College of Management, but also to Georgia Tech as a whole," says ILE research scientist Dóri Pap. "It really showcases the Institute's best examples of social entrepreneurship."

I2S Finalists include:

• ArkFab, which would produce organic vegetables by up-cycling organic waste biomass from local breweries, coffee shops, and municipal arborists through a multi-stage bioconversion process.
• Sustainable Solar Sanitation System, which would address the issue of sanitation in developing countries through the creation of a dry latrine system that provides sustainable, affordable, and safe treatment of human waste using the sun's energy.
• Urban RePeel, which would create composting centers in an effort to minimize the large amounts of food waste leaving apartment complexes, supermarkets, and airports.
• Camp Phoenix, which would be a containerized housing community for homeless and at-risk veterans that helps them transition into civilian lives.
• OneTab, a concept for a ECG device that could work on electronic waste parts, transmitting medical information from hospitals lacking much energy and medical expertise to doctors in other locations who would interpret medical data and provide treatment advice.
• Team Yucca, a Website that would post opportunities for people to help nonprofits by providing professional-level support from their homes.
• Incinerate, which would address the need for safe and sustainable trash disposal in developing countries with the a small modular incinerator that could burn trash in a safe, environmentally friendly way.

Judges for the finals include: Jerome A. Atkinson, principal of Turning Point Private Capital; Karen Robinson Cope, managing partner of Atlanta Technology Advisors; Arun Gore, managing director of Gray Ghost Ventures; Penelope McPhee, president of The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, and John C. Staton Jr., retired partner of King & Spalding LLP.

The master of ceremonies is Kathleen Kurre, CEO of TechBridge.

Sponsors include Gray Ghost Ventures, MaRC Sustainable Design & Manufacturing, the Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems, Georgia Tech College of Management, Tedd Munchak Chair in Entrepreneurship, and Tech's Institute for Leadership and Entrepreneurship

© 2012 Georgia Institute of Technology