The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) has announced the regional finalists of the 2024 ASME Innovation Showcase (ISHOW), the prestigious international accelerator of hardware-led social innovation. Six social ventures from throughout the Americas will pitch their innovative solutions and participate in an extensive design and engineering review with judges in a virtual event beginning Tuesday, July 23. Three regional winners will be selected to join the 2024 ASME ISHOW cohort and announced at a virtual awards ceremony on Thursday, August 1, at noon EST. Register here.

The ISHOW USA finalists, whose innovations provide affordable, sustainable hardware technology solutions to building, energy, healthcare, water, and waste challenges, will vie for a share of $30,000 in grant awards and technical support to help bring their impactful innovations to market. 

The regional finalists are:

•    AirVitalize Innovations (Fairbanks, Alaska, and Los Angeles, U.S.) for its “AirVitalize technology” – that captures outdoor particle air pollution to improve public health and the environment 

•    ALKEMIO (Buenos Aires, Argentina, and San Francisco, U.S.) for its “Selective Molecular Technology” – that can selectively extract and separate rare earth elements enabling enhanced cost efficiency and revenue optimization throughout the value chain

•    Calmura Natural Walls (Vancouver, BC, Canada) for its “Monolithic Biocomposite Building Panel” – valorizing waste agroforestry resources to create bio-based building materials that are durable, healthy, and climate-change resilient, enabling architects and builders to create buildings that store carbon and provide healthy and comfortable shelters for many generations

•    EKO GROUP H2O+ COLOMBIA (Bogota, Colombia) for its “EKOMURO H2O+” – Crafted from recycled and repurposed materials, designed to store rainwater, effectively providing sustainable access to safe water in communities previously devoid of it

•    NiveauUp (Chicago, Ill., U.S. and Taipei, Taiwan) for its “XFC (eXtreme Fast Charging) battery cell manufacturing and digitization platform” – capable of charging 10X faster, lasting 3X longer, at high energy density level, independent of choices of active materials

•    Participant Assistive Products (San Francisco, U.S.) for its “Cub Wheelchair” – a unique, all-terrain wheelchair for children with cerebral palsy and similar conditions, offering tilt and postural support features, folding to fit in small vehicles, and expanding as the child grows, all at a vastly more affordable cost for families and health insurance systems.

The 2024 ISHOW cohort will be invited to the annual ISHOW Bootcamp in the winter to receive an extensive and customized design and engineering review by experts curated to guide them as they scale to market. They will also have a chance to earn a second round of seed grants from ASME. They become part of the ISHOW alumni network, an international community of hardware innovators and stakeholders with exclusive access to experts and resources. 

“Through the vision and creativity of these talented entrepreneurs and the guidance of expert mentors, ASME ISHOW and IDEA LAB are transforming groundbreaking ideas into market-ready products that improve lives,” said ASME Executive Director/CEO Tom Costabile. “These programs are key components of ASME’s sustainability and climate strategy, aligned with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.”

ISHOW USA is the final regional event of the year. ISHOW India winners were announced April 25 in Chennai, and ISHOW Kenya winners were announced June 20 in Nairobi. Three ventures selected at each event will join the ISHOW 2024 cohort.

The prestigious ASME ISHOW hardware accelerator is open to individuals and organizations taking physical products to market that will have a positive social and environmental impact and improve the quality of life around the world. ASME ISHOW annually matches up to 21 carefully selected innovators with appropriate experts to ensure that the proposed hardware solutions are technologically, environmentally, culturally, and financially sustainable. To date, ISHOW has enabled over 230 startups from more than 35 countries to solve critical quality-of-life challenges for vulnerable populations worldwide. ISHOW alumni have developed affordable devices to address issues including clean combustion, crop threshing, fetal health, food waste prevention, health diagnostics, safe drinking water, and many more that address the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. 

ASME ISHOW judges and facilitators include experts in research, sustainability, mechanical engineering and product design, manufacturing, startup financing, supply chain, and business strategy, representing organizations including Bommer.io, CompanyCam, Google, Manhattan College, The Pennsylvania State University, Very Technology, and Vinyard Product Development. These subject matter experts provide technical and strategic guidance based on ISHOW’s five key pillars: customer/user knowledge, hardware validation, manufacturing optimization, implementation strategy, and impact.

For more information, visit www.asme.org.