$250,000 will go as long way for Husk Power Systems.

The 2008/09 Venture Well cohort member beat 15 finalists from around the world to win the DFJ and Cisco Global Business Plan Competition on Tuesday, June 30.

Husk Power develops miniature power-plants the cost-effectivley convert rice husks into electricity, serving rural Indian villages. The team will receive a $250,000 investment from DFJ and Cisco to help take the company to the next stage. The presenting members of the Husk Power Systems team were University of Virginia, Darden School of Business 2009 graduates Chip Ransler and Manoj Sinha. The team started their company in India in 2007.

NCIIA program Venture Well provides venture development and seed investment to start-ups that will change the world.

Enjoy these video updates from one of our Sustainable Vision teams: Stanford University's project to strengthening manufacturing capacity of Burmese metalworking firms to promote sustained development. The team believes introducing an improved manufacturing process for treadle pumps will eventually diffuse to other areas, broadly improving the local metalworking sector.

From diesel to vegetable oil... One of NCIIA's earliest grantees (in 1999), Greasecar has sold thousands of vegetable oil conversion kits from their base in Holyoke, Mass. In this clip from Discovery Tech, a diesel-guzzling truck is converted to run on fryer oil using a Greasecar kit.

Just two years after it received a Sustainable Vision grant, Greenlight Planet, Inc is selling its solar-charged, battery-powered LED lantern in India and China. Along the way, the company, which spun out of an E-Team from University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, has raised more than $500,000 from investors.

Greenlight Planet's market proposition is simple: to sell ultra-affordable solar LED lights for the 1.6 billion people who still don't have electricity. There are important social and environmental benefits: Greenlight Planet's lantern is cleaner, more economical, less dangerous, and less polluting then petroleum lanterns.

Read more at Greenlight Planet.com.

A lab without walls, a single-point incision tool, and a vitamin D biosensor. MedGadget.com reports on the 2009 BMEidea winners!

We enjoyed attending the ASEE Annual Conference in Austin, TX, last week.

And, we're pleased to announce the winners of our 'Open-Bike' draw!

• Rob Prins, assistant professor at James Madison University, wins the free registration to Open, NCIIA's 2010 Annual Conference in San Francisco.
• Casey Cline, assistant professor at Boise State University, wins the Trek 7.3 urban bike.

Congratulations!