by Rebecca Walker — May 21, 2010—A startup company that has created an emissions-reducing, nanoengineered cement won $100,000 in funding to get its business off the ground.
C-Crete Technologies won the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) $100K Entrepreneurship Competition, beating out teams with insulin chewing gum and a silent alarm clock. Aukera Therpeutics, a startup developing a drug to battle Lou Gehrig’s disease, won the audience choice prize and $10,000.
C-Crete is comprised of MIT graduates who claim their nanoengineered cement is also stronger than existing materials, in addition to its ability to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
The idea began as a class project four years ago for Natanel Barookhian, a student in MIT’s Sloan School of Management, and Rouzbeh Shahsavari, a student in MIT’s School of Engineering.
“For many years, the world has been looking for simple, scalable solutions to reduce the global carbon footprint and limit its impact on the environment,” Barookhian said in a statement Thursday. “We at C-Crete Technologies have developed a method for tackling this issue by targeting the production of cement, one of the most widely used materials on earth, while improving all of its core properties. We believe our technology will make a significant impact on the world, and we look forward to growing a viable, sustainable business to meet these ends.”
For more information, see the MIT Web site.
