Hacking for Energy: Finale Recap

Last week, we hosted the finale of Hacking for Energy in the beautiful 10th Floor Lounge of Riverside Church. This event was the culmination of this year’s Hacking for Energy class, where graduate students from Columbia, NYU, and CUNY spent 14 weeks developing solutions to real energy and sustainability challenges from large organizations. Each week the student gave updates on their development in class to a set of eight instructors experienced with the Lean Launchpad methodology. They also received regular guidance from their team mentor as well as their Industry Host. The five student teams combined completed 435 interviews in the 14 weeks, and at least one team plans to work toward converting their project into a startup after class.

Left to Right: Julia Byrd and Rebecca Silver.

We kicked things off with some opening remarks from core instructors Julia Byrd and Rebecca Silver. They spoke about how all of the teams quickly realized their initial ideas for solutions were wrong when they started to conduct interviews. They acknowledged that the customer discovery process can be an emotional journey because of the rejection all the teams face when trying to find a solution. 

It takes a lot of resilience and grit to be able to succeed in a class like Hacking for Energy, but all of the teams persevered. Julia and Rebecca reiterated how proud the whole teaching team was of all of the teams and were excited to share the final results with the audience. They also thanked the Industry Hosts, mentors, and other teaching team members, as the teams would not have come so far if it were not for their support and guidance. 
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​Then we dove right into the presentations. Each team was given 15 minutes to present their findings to the audience and the eight members of the teaching team. After each presentation, the teaching team asked questions and gave comments to the students on both the presentation and their work in the course. Below is a brief overview of each project.

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Aquathots

Left to Right: Yuji Lin, Spring Song, Hetvi Dave, and Yifan Li.

Industry Host: The New York City Department of Environmental Protection
Total Number of Interviews: 110
Challenge: Develop a building or district scale cost‐saving water reuse system that meets the requirements of the On‐site Water Reuse Grant Pilot Program to help the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) meet its water demand reduction targets outlined in the Water Demand Management Plan.
Proposed Solution: A water usage tracking service that will help managers and residents save money by saving water

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DemoDogs

Left to Right: Vikas Vicraman, Marissa Fresquez, Steven Park, Team Mentor Karen Morris, Catarina Carvalho, and Don Holder.

Industry Host: Environmental Protection Agency
Total Number of Interviews: 122
Challenge: Devise a new system or service for transporting around people and/or goods in low‐density cities where public transportation options are limited in order to be more efficient and cost‐effective while also reducing emissions of GHGs and other pollutants.
Proposed Solution: An app that predicts demand for ride-hailing services as a way of reducing the idling time of drivers and encouraging the use of electric vehicles for ride sharing services.

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PowerTab

Left to Right: Noah Rauschkolb, Rebecca Miller, Julia Magliozzo.

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Industry Host: Electric Power Research Institute
Total Number of Interviews: 93
Challenge: There are several issues impacting electric vehicle (EV) adoption, including but not limited to Battery Pack Maintenance and Replacement Costs (i.e. ~$5000 to replace pack). What are the opportunities to alleviate consumer/EV owner anxieties, and identify/capture revenue opportunities both the EV’s life?
Proposed Solution: A web app that will provide fleet owners with a custom comparison of the cost-savings, environmental benefits, and mileage range of electric vehicles (EVs) to better make purchasing decisions.

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Residential Potential

Industry Host: New York Integrated System Operator
Total Number of Interviews: 100
Challenge: Develop a cheap, accurate, and robust method of transmitting Distributed Energy Resource/Demand Response energy meter data to the grid operators so that they can ensure the reliability of the grid.
Proposed Solution: A service to enable large scale participation of residential and small business owners in the Distributed Energy Resources/Demand Response market allowing aggregators to access new revenue streams.

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After the student presentations, we closed out the event and the students networked with the attendees from the energy industry. Head here check out photos of the event.

We are so happy to have had another successful year of Hacking for Energy, and would like to take a moment to acknowledge and thank all the individuals who played a role helping us with the course this year.

• Our co-instructor: Rebecca Silver of The NYU Entrepreneurial Institute
• The Industry Hosts: Diana Galperin at the Environmental Protection Agency, Stephen Stella at the Electric Power Research Institute, John Brock and Hannah Doherty at the The New York City Department of Environmental Protection, and James Pigeon at the New York Integrated System Operator.
• The Mentors: Joel Ndreu, Karen Morris, Nicholas Wood, Joe Silver, and James Hendon
• The Entrepreneur Instructors: Boyan Penkov, David Dabscheck, Dave Petrillo, Dee Dao, Ivy Schultz, and Jim Aloise.
• Administrators at Columbia, NYU, and CUNY who advocated for the course: Jenny Shuk-Chiang Mak, Merit Janow, Samuel Sia, Orin Herskowitz, Ivy Schultz, Dario Vasquez, The Columbia Energy Policy Institute, Carolyn Kissane, Frank Rimalovski, Kurt Becker, John Blaho, Philip Loew, Jessica Fields, Ariella Trotsenko
• Student groups who helped get the word out: Columbia Energy Club, NYU Stern Social Impact and Sustainability Association, The Stern Energy Club, Columbia SIPA Energy Association, NYU Energy Policy International Club, NYU Strategic Venture Society, Hack NYU
• Our partners who are teaching Hacking for X classes across the country: Joe Schuman from MD5, Nat Kelner from Columbia University, Chris Taylor from Georgetown, and Dan Cole and Buddy Clark from University of Pittsburgh
• And, last but not least, the individuals who paved the way by teaching Hacking for Defense at Stanford and are launching Hacking for X, a new way of teaching entrepreneurship: Steve Blank and Pete Newell

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Hacking for Energy will be taking a break, but will be back in the summer to start planning Spring 2019. To stay update and learn how get involved, sign up for our mailing list.