Greenlight Planet Lights Up The Developing World

The Earth Times reported that Patrick Walsh, a student at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, won the $30,000 Lemelson-Illinois Student Prize, which is awarded to a student who has demonstrated remarkable inventiveness and innovation. Patrick developed a battery-powered, solar-charged LED lampare that is brighter, safer, healthier, longer-lasting, and less expensive for people with unreliable electricity. According to the report, Patrick visited India following his freshman year in college, which inspired him to change the the way 1.6 billion people (the Indian population) light their homes. Many of the nation's citizens still use kerosene lamps for lighting within the home. Patrick's portable lamp will not only reduce the $38 billion in annual fuel spending, but will also risk of poor air quality and accidental fires.

Patrick has since started Greenlight Planet, Inc. and is preparing to launch the first of his lamps, appropriately named SolarFlare, this spring. Finally a full-time entrepreneur, Patrick is getting ready to make 1,000 samples for families in the developing world. Lemelson isn't the first win for Patrick. He took top honors in the Social Venture Division of last year's V. Dale Cozad Business Plan Competition, which gave him the opportunity to develop the concept in the Technology Entrepreneur Center’s Student Entrepreneur Learning Lab. In addition, in December 2007, he received a Mondialogo Engineering Award, given by a partnership between UNESCO and DaimlerChrysler. Earlier this year, Walsh received a Sustainable Vision Advanced E-Team grant from the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance, and in 2006, his team received a grant from the Environmental Protection Agency to produce 100 prototype units for distribution in India.