Duke Sophomores Aim to Transform Cold Storage in India

The Hult Prize, the world’s largest social entrepreneurship competition for college students, advertises itself as the “Nobel Prize for social entrepreneurs.” Now a Duke team—mPower—is heading to the Hult finals with an idea to address India’s shortage of agricultural cold storage solutions by offering a novel storage and distribution network that compensates farmers and simplifies the supply chain. To get here, team member Harshvardhan Sanghi, a Duke mechanical engineering major, told Duke Today that "we leveraged our resources at Duke, including the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Initiative as well as the newly launched Energy Access Project. Our network of mentors helped us flesh out minute details within our business model, clarify logistics, and improve the viability of our proposed technology.”