May 29: Guelph students make their pitch for the Scotiabank EcoLiving Student Leadership Awards

University of Guelph students are aiming to bridge the gap between energy providers and consumers by linking energy consumption to social consequences. Jimmy Luong, an accounting student in the College of Business + Economics, along with three computer science students, Aftab Ahmad, Nic Durish and Ryan Haque, are one of three final teams vying for the Scotiabank EcoLiving Student Leadership Awards.

Their innovation, ElecTrickle, aims to minimize electricity usage by dividing monthly billing periods into smaller sections that allows users to set their own budgets. Consumers are also able to track and compare their electricity usage through online leaderboards. If the consumer is unable to reach their usage goal, they can choose their own consequences such as charity donations or social media "shaming." 

The ElecTrickle team is in the running for the EcoLiving award which is valued at $10,000. Being the only business student in the group, Luong enjoyed working with an eclectic team of computer science majors. Their idea first came to life at the Net Zero Hackathon hosted by the Entrepreneurship Society and the Society of Computing and Information Science on March 28.

ElecTrickle is up against a team from Ryerson University and another University of Guelph team. Engineering students Wesley Romak, Melissa Love, Thomas Marshall and Cody Carey from the University of Guelph created Flywheel Energy Storage which helps store energy during low peak hours and converts it back to electricity during high peak hours.

The winners of the Scotiabank EcoLiving Student Leadership Award will be announced on June 3 at the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Photo courtesy of James Musselman.