Charger Startup Weekend Winners: Blending Talents Across Disciplines to Create a Biodegradable Bottle to Help Reduce Plastic Waste and Make the World’s Oceans Cleaner

Esther Dronyi is still amazed that what started out as just a thought, a sketch of an idea, over the course of Charger Startup Weekend turned into a product concept: All Ways Green – a naturally sourced bottle made of a seed paper exoskeleton and an agar lining, a bottle that would be fully biodegradable, helping decrease the amount of plastic waste in the world’s oceans.

"When it decomposes, it will grow into plants and can also feed fish depending on where it is discarded," Dronyi says. "The lining begins decomposition as soon as it is emptied."

All Ways Green took first place in last fall’s Charger Startup Weekend. The idea began with Yaw Ansong Jr. who grew up in Ghana where he says, "There is plastic garbage – bags, bottles –on the beaches and the streets of our main city Accra. With the exception of the best and highest income neighborhoods, plastic has destroyed the beauty of our environment."

"Generating ideas is a skill that requires practice. They might find a product already exists in the market, but a small change, an innovation, could give it an advantage." Maria-Isabel Carnasciali, Ph.D.

Ansong saw an opportunity to help change that during Charger Startup Weekend when a group of students from different academic disciplines chose to work to solve the problem of plastic waste in oceans. They had a weekend to devise a product, a plan, and a pitch they’d give to a panel of judges – entrepreneurs from the region. Team members included Ansong and Dronyi, who are pursuing master’s degrees in biomedical engineering, Keerthana Krishnaraj, a graduate student in healthcare administration, Ketsia Kimpioka, a senior business management major, and Jasmin Flete, a first-year business management major.

"Our different backgrounds were very beneficial," Dronyi says. "As engineers we were coming from a 'how do we make this work?' approach and the business management students came from a 'is this feasible to market?' perspective. Our product was well aligned to both objectives. Ketsia, is a talented artist so she sketched out the visual we used in our pitch. Our team was very cognizant of everyone having a voice and being involved and we worked hard to be a cohesive force."

Thirty-five students from across disciplines took part in the competition and each team was guided by an entrepreneur mentor. "Generating ideas is a skill that requires practice," says Maria-Isabel Carnasciali, Ph.D., associate professor of mechanical engineering. Developing an idea is just the start. "They have to investigate the market to see if the problem they are solving deserves to be solved," Dr. Carnasciali says. "They might find a product already exists in the market, but a small change, an innovation, could give it an advantage."

"Winning was an exhilarating experience. It let me know that there are people who care about the environment and believed in our solution." Yaw Ansong Jr.

Charger Startup Weekend is one of several startup pitch competitions students can participate in throughout the year. Thirty-eight University students are now preparing for the Alvine New Venture Pitch Competition, an interdisciplinary initiative supported by the University’s Entrepreneurship and Innovation program. For three months, they take part in workshops on entrepreneurship, sales and marketing, revenue-generation models, and intellectual property identification and protection, while developing the ideas they will pitch to a panel of judges in April.

Meanwhile the winning Charger Startup team members are developing a prototype and will seek funding to move All Ways Green forward. "Winning was an exhilarating experience," Ansong says. "It let me know that there are people who care about the environment and believed in our solution."