August is National Inventors Month, an extended celebration of American invention and creativity. The event, started in 1998 by the United Inventors Association of the USA, the Academy of Applied Science, and Inventors' Digest magazine, helps promote a positive image of inventors and highlights their real contributions to the world.

Invention is, of course, close to the heart of NCIIA, and in the spirit of National Inventors Month we'll be presenting profiles of our student inventors each week throughout the month of August.

In 2004, NCIIA awarded a Course and Program grant to the University of Colorado at Boulder to support the development of a course now called Engineering for the Developing World. Recently, two students from the first offering of the course launched Manna Energy, LTD, a social venture that has as its first focus implementing an economically sustainable water treatment system in Rwanda. Manna Energy has already won $300,000 from two competitions. Read the press release.

Former E-Team Ecovative Design has partnered with Steelcase to supply the office furniture designer and manufacturer with green packaging materials for its product lines. Ecovative's 'Ecocradle' packaging material, made up of agricultural byproducts bound together with mushroom roots, is a sustainable alternative to styrofoam.

See the full story at Fast Company.

Former E-Team Greenlight Planet, which designs and sells solar lanterns, has won two important awards.

In June, Greenlight Planet's our flagship product, the Sun King lantern (an NCIIA E-Team Grant brainchild), was recognized by the World Bank/IFC "Lighting Africa" Program as best solar task light on the market.

In early July, Greenlight Planet's new product, the Sun King Hero, a solar lantern with built-in cell phone charger, won the "Solar For All" Design Contest. This carried with it a $250,000 prize.

According to Patrick Walsh, one of the original E-Team members who now represents the company in China, "We have really assembled a killer combination of innovative technology and in-house distribution networks - having both competencies in one company is pretty uncommon. We're planning to grow very quickly. And we have NCIIA to thank!"

NCIIA has been awarded a grant of $99,996 from the National Science Foundation to create a new faculty development program, Sustainable Vision Teaching Lab, that ultimately will prepare engineering students to tackle the world's most pressing social and environmental problems.

Sustainable Vision Teaching Lab will be launched in June 2011. Check back for more details.

NCIIA grantees and Olympus Innovation Award winners Andy Hargadon and Paul Hudnut recently spoke at the fourth annual Green Technology Entrepreneurship Academy, organized by the UC Davis Center for Entrepreneurship. Read more about the event.

Andy, who runs the UC-Davis Center for Entrepreneurship, won the Olympus Emerging Educational Leader Award in 2009. Paul, director of the Global Social and Sustainable Enterprise Program at Colorado State University’s College of Business, won this year's Olympus Innovation Award.