The winner of KTH Innovation Challenge “Digital Future” crowned
With the idea EVintellect Project, KTH phD student Saleh Kargarrazi together with Maryam Pourreza, won the KTH Innovation Challenge “Digital Future”. The competition is a yearly competition run by KTH Innovation and the team will now get SEK 50 000 to spend on developing their idea.
Tell us about EVintellect Project?
– Our idea can improve power electronics for electric vehicles (EV) and hybrid electric vehicles (HEV), to be lighter, more compact, and more fuel and energy efficient compared to the current solutions on the market. We can integrate electronics needed for these industries using wide-bandgap technologies. The proof-of-principle has been demonstrated during the last 5 years of research in the department of integrated devices and circuits at KTH where also Prof. Carl-Mikael Zetterling, has been very supportive.
What is the most challenging about developing your idea?
– There have been steady changes in the automotive industry during the last years. To move from internal combustion engine to hybrid-electric and electric vehicles we can see today that electric vehicles have found an established growing market. It has been estimated that by 2020, EVs and HEVs will increase to 25% of the automotive market. EVs have become cheaper over time and they do not burn the limited fossil fuel resources. The cost of EVintellect Project is relatively high and needs a good investment but we believe this will pay off in the long run. We also hope to find reliable long term partners mainly in Sweden, but also abroad in the domains of process design and fabrication, product development and reliable packaging.
Why did you compete in KTH Innovation Challenge and what kind of support are you expecting to get from KTH Innovation?
– We have heard of the support KTH innovation provides for high-tech startups and believe we can make a product that can revolutionize the future of EV and HEV industries. Primarily we have to extend our knowledge in patenting, marketing, customers and investments and hope that KTH innovation can help us with these topics. The grant money will be used for marketing, expansion of our team and getting licenses and tools for prototype development.
EVintellect Project develops their Idea at the School of Information and Communication Technology in Kista. During November, KTH Innovation had a pop-up office in Kista and EVintellect Project was one of many ideas KTH innovation came in contact with. In the beginning of next year we will reveal which school we will be visiting during Mars. Stay tuned!
Malin Luuke
luuke@kth.se
More about EVintellect Project
Saleh Kargarrazi is the founder and a PhD student at KTH and is planning to defend his PhD thesis in a few months. His research is about “High-temperature integrated power electronics” and he has published several articles in leading conferences and journals within this field.
Maryam Pourreza is a co-founder and has an MSc in computer software engineering from Sharif university of Technology. She has been awarded a fellowship of exceptional talents for M.Sc. program in software engineering and has conducted extensive research in cloud computing issues.
Would you like to know more about EVintellect Project or are you interested in working with this case? Please contact evintellect@gmail.com At the moment they are looking for people to join their team specializing in semiconductor process design and fabrication, extreme integration, and marketing.