Welectricity wins Wharton’s award in Philadelphia, for ‘Best New Sustainability Innovation’

Welectricity, an innovative, award-winning social network that helps users track, compare and reduce their electricity consumption at home, has won an award{{more}} at the prestigious Knowledge@Wharton/Wipro Technologies Innovation Tournament, held at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, on April 27, 2011.

Sponsored jointly by Knowledge@Wharton and Wipro Technologies, a global IT services company, the tournament challenged innovators from around the world to compete for a total of $40,000 in cash prizes. The tournament inspired more than 160 submissions from six continents. The 44 teams that made it to the semifinals were asked to submit video presentations. From those, the top 14 entrants were invited to Philadelphia, on April 27, to present their ideas to a panel of judges made up of academics and industry leaders.

“I can’t imagine a more diverse set of opportunities,” Karl Ulrich, Wharton’s vice dean of innovation and one of the judges, told the finalists at the end of the day’s presentations. “We had [entries about] world peace and customer data and carbon credits…. It was incredibly diverse.”

Awards were presented in four categories and a grand prize was awarded. Following the presentations by 15 finalists at the final event on April 27, Welectricity was judged the “Best New Sustainability Innovation”.