The AlgaePrize is a national algal-based competition that challenges students to become the next generation of bioeconomy professionals.
Donor Name: U.S. Department of Energy
State: All States
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Prize
Deadline: 11/01/2023
Size of the Grant: $15,000
Details:
The AlgaePrize 2023-2025 Competition, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy Bioenergy Technologies Office and supported by The Algae Foundation and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), challenges students to become the next generation of bioeconomy professionals by expanding novel solutions to production, processing, and new product development on the way to gigaton-scale algae commercialization. AlgaePrize 2023–2025, is part of DOE’s American-Made Challenges, which represents a series of unique prize competitions designed to incentivize and reenergize American innovation in the energy marketplace.
The AlgaePrize 2023-2025 competition is open to teams of two or more students currently enrolled in a U.S.-based high school, community college, college, university, or graduate program. The competition will span two academic years. Students will learn about the algae industry and will go on to support the nation’s biofuel research, algal commercial enhancement, and promote industry-driven education, training, and workforce development.
Competitors will prepare creative solutions for real-world issues in the algae value chain. Students will compete to earn prize money and national recognition.
Goals
- Student competitors will learn about the algae industry and will go on to support the nation’s biofuel research, algal commercial enhancement, and promote industry-driven education, training, and workforce development.
- Over the next two years, student competitors will:
- Gain experience with innovative algal commercialization technologies
- Develop real-world solutions that shape the global future of algae by producing biofuels, biofoods, biofeeds, and industrial compounds (e.g., biopolymers)
- Develop collaborative and leadership skills by working on multidisciplinary student teams
- Engage and network with industry professionals, national lab researchers, and academics to forge relationships and connections that aid students’ transition to the algal-based bioeconomy employment or entrepreneurial endeavors upon graduation
- Compete to earn prize money, a trophy, and national recognition.
Areas of Interest
The three areas of interest for the AlgaePrize include both microalgae and macroalgae. Student teams should focus their project on one of the following areas of interest:
- Production
- Cultivar enhancement
- Aquaculture engineering
- Husbandry and productivity
- Downstream Processing
- Harvesting, dewatering, and preprocessing
- Development of biorefinery applications
- Novel Products, Analytical Tools, or Ecosystem Services
- New product development
- Remote sensing and modeling
- Ecosystem services
Prizes
This competition will award two separate rounds of prizes:
- Research Synopsis Prize: The first stage of judging will result in up to 15 student teams being selected as AlgaePrize finalists. Each finalist team will be awarded $10,000. Of the prize, $8,000 to be paid upon notice of finalist selection and an additional $2,000 in support of travel upon submissions of the research program’s final report.
- Final Awards: Finalist teams will present their research at the AlgaePrize competition event. The five top student teams will be selected as AlgaePrize champions. Each champion team will be awarded an additional $10,000 prize. The five champion teams will then present their research to a final panel of judges. These judges will select a single Grand Champion and award the Grand Champion an additional $15,000 grand prize.
Eligibility Criteria
- The AlgaePrize invites participation of teams composed of at least two student members enrolled in a U.S.-based educational institution (high school, accredited community college, college, university and/or graduate school). Students must be enrolled in at least one class and must be pursuing a degree or diploma at the time a student joins a team. Teams with students from multiple educational institutions are allowed, and multiple teams from the same educational institution are allowed. However, individual students may be members of only one team. The student team captain must be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident.
- Each team must have a faculty advisor employed by a U.S.-based educational institution to provide input, guidance, and support. Judges, competition organizers, federal employees, and national laboratory employees are not eligible to compete in the competition. Immediate family members of the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, the Algae Foundation, and NREL employees are not eligible to compete in the competition.
- Student participation may be integrated into a senior project or thesis, count as elective or independent study course credit, be added to the curriculum of existing classes, treated as a seminar topic, engaged in as part of a student interest club, or be an extracurricular student activity.
- High School Competitors: Student teams composed of all high school students under the age of 18 must have their faculty advisor register the team on HeroX. Each high school may support more than one team. High school students may not be on multiple teams.
For more information, visit USDOE.
