Three mechanical engineering students of the Indian Institute of Kharagpur teamed up to harness solar energy in creating products for farmers in rural India. Pune-based Ecozen, the company that they established, provides a portable, solar-powered micro cold storage system called Ecofrost that can accommodate 5-6 tons of produce which is a sufficient capacity for a single farmer. It can be monitored remotely by the team and can be operated via an Android app by the farmer.
Their second product is a solar pumping system called Ecotron that can be retro-fitted on existing diesel pumps as well. Ecotron is equipped with a controller to store energy which can then be used to power other appliances such as lights and fans when pump is not in use, reports Outlook Business.
The company has won many accolades:
- It won the Dow Sustainability Innovation Challenge at California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
- It won the Economic Times-Power of Ideas award from DST, Govt. of India
- Ecozen’s idea is among the world’s top 30 business ideas at Stanford’s E-bootcamp
