Columbus High grad to appear on GPB invention show

Columbus native Simon Clark, who graduated from Georgia Tech’s mechanical engineering program in December, will appear on Georgia Public Broadcasting Television’s “The InVenture Prize @ Georgia Tech,” which will air live at 7 p.m. tonight.

Clark is part of a six-member team of inventors responsible for the Multifunctional Automobile Powered Pump (MAPP).

The device began as part of a senior design project, when a U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) worker in South Africa contacted the students about inventing something that would help get water out of the deep but plentiful wells and to the people.

Clark, a 2005 Columbus High graduate, said the MAPP was built with irrigation in mind. It is also built entirely out of scavenged material from a junkyard in Atlanta. They group wanted to save money and prove the system could be repaired using materials available in the third world.

The show will be co-hosted by former CNN anchor and NASA expert Miles O’Brien and Dr. Bahareh Azzizi, a Georgia Tech graduate and student mentor.

“We’re (using) this competition to provide resources, structure and incentives to nurture our campus inventive and entrepreneurial culture,” said Craig Forest, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Georgia Tech.

The eight inventions being presented tonight were selected from over 300 submissions.

Teams and individual inventors will compete for a grand prize of $15,000 cash, a free U.S. patent filed by Georgia Tech’s Office of Technology Licensing (a $20,000 value), and “business services to pursue commercialization, such as funding opportunities, office space, market vetting and mentorship by faculty and industry entrepreneurs,” according to the GPB Web site.

The second place prize is $10,000 cash, plus the free patent licensing and business services; a People’s Choice Award winner will receive a $5,000 cash prize.

Clark believes that his team and invention have a good chance of winning.

“There are a lot of other good inventions, but I think we’ll definitely be in the top three,” he said, noting the “feel good, save the world” aspect of the MAPP gives them a good shot at the People’s Choice category.

Clark has accepted a job for Stein Engineering, an aerospace consulting group in Germany, where he and his wife will move in the near future.

If the MAPP wins, Clark’s group will use the funds to improve upon their invention as well as engage in field testing in Mozambique.

He said they would also develop some prototypes for the Emergency Response Services for Latin America (ERSLA), who had contacted the group previously about using MAPP for fire fighting in Nicaragua.

Forest said that the competition shows Georgia Tech engineering graduates that they can not only work for big, nationally-known companies, “but they can start their own companies.

“We’re gonna make these inventors superheroes,” he added. “It’s like ‘American Idol!’”