This year, to celebrate the return of in-person Finals at Argonne National Laboratory, organizers of the event added the ‘Golden Buzzer’ Award. It functions like the popular gameshow, where the contestant progresses to the next level when a judge activates the buzzer. America’s got serious talent in energy entrepreneurship indeed! For CRI, the buzzer advances the Finalist directly to Unicorn status. This year, one outstanding contestant received the Golden Buzzer vote for his project, “Sustainable Time Travel.”
When questioned by a panelist on his IP position, a finalist going by the name of “Dr. Who” confidently answered, “With my core time travel technology–free of GHG emissions by the way–I can always go back in time and file an invention disclosure before my competitors. This is a full-proof, sustainable venture.”
Judge 3, who declined to be named, activated the Golden Buzzer upon hearing this game-changing technology that promises to revolutionize the time travel industry.
Judge 2, Dr. James Tiberius Kirk, pointed out that Judge 3 and finalist Dr. Who shared an uncanny likeness, leading to an animated discussion by all the judges that focused on time paradoxes. Unfortunately, technical difficulties meant the session was not recorded and the buzzer was out of view on the event livestream.
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Now that we have your attention, here’s what actually happened that’s even more exciting than “Sustainable Time Travel.”
On March 29th, CRI brought 17 finalists representing 15 startups to Argonne where they pitched their technologies to join Cohort 7. The event saw 321 registered with 68 in-person attendees and 161 logged in online.
The event was the first in-person finals since March 2020 and included facility tours as well as a reception hosted by World Business Chicago and Choose DuPage Economic Development Alliance. The U. S. Department of Energy is expected to announce the next CRI cohort in May. Technologies ranged from quantum to water purification and energy storage to retrofit dehumidification.
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