By Sue McMurray, Carson College of Business
PULLMAN, Wash. – TriboTEX, a student company at Washington State University, won the $3,000 Member’s Choice Award at the Grand Final Round of the Licensing Executives Society (LES) Foundation International Graduate Student Business Plan Competition in San Diego, Calif.
The LES competition emphasizes intellectual property education, professional mentorships and networking. The final round of this year’s competition was held by virtual connection and hosted at the offices of Knobbe, Martens, Olson and Bear in San Diego, Calif. The Member’s Choice Award was voted on via the Internet and from a view and vote kiosk at the LES (USA & Canada) Spring Meeting in La Jolla, CA.
It was TriboTEX’s third recognition this year, after recently winning the Best Technology Prize in the Sweet 16 Round at the University of Washington Business Plan Competition and being selected as the first WSU team to be invited to compete in Rice University’s international business plan competition, the world’s richest and largest graduate student startup contest.
“TriboTEX has made tremendous progress this year, securing funding, support, mentoring, and recognition from a number of institutions and competitions across the country,” said Andrew Perkins, WSU marketing associate professor and team coach.
TriboTEX is a clean-tech startup that aims to extend the operational life-span of industrial machinery through use of DuoLife(™), a eco-friendly nanoparticle product that works at the surface level to effectively recondition moving parts during normal operation, with little or no downtime.
“Traditional additives are designed to optimize the properties of oil – viscosity, cleaning power, and thermal stability – areas where there’s not much room for improvement. While lubricants try to slow down wear, our coating actually reverses wear, extending the life of machinery,” said Pavlo Rudenko, TriboTEX founder.
Rudenko, a recent WSU graduate in materials science and engineering, started the company in 2012 to commercialize clean super-lubricants. He and teammates Thomas Gualtieri (engineering), Matt Hanley (business administration) and Qassem Naim (business administration) are coached by Andrew Perkins, associate professor of marketing in the WSU Carson College of Business.
TriboTEX is pursuing strategic partnerships to take commercialization efforts forward and bring innovative products to market.
Visit http://tribotex.com/ to learn more about TriboTEX or watch a video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzDuRUMgRMA
Contacts:
Andrew Perkins, WSU Carson College of Business, 509-335-0940, a.perkins@wsu.edu
Sue McMurray, WSU Carson College of Business communications, 509-335-7578, sue.mcmurray@wsu.edu