The winners of the DOB’s Carbon Neutrality and Hack the Building Code Innovation Challenges presented their entries during keynote sessions at the DOB Digital 2020: Safety, Innovation and Sustainability Conference.
The competitions were launched earlier this year in partnership with the Urban Tech Hub @ Company. The “Carbon Neutrality” challenge solicited ideas to increase building sustainability. The “Hack the Building Code” innovation challenge sought ways to modernize and improve the city’s building code. The department received over 80 entries for both competitions combined.
The winners of the “Carbon Neutrality” challenge are: Hydromx®, the first commercially viable and academically recognized efficient heat transfer nanofluid for hydronic closed-loop cooling and heating systems enabling 20-35% energy savings of the associated HVAC bills; the Radiator Labs’ Cozy platform, a uniquely enabling proprietary system of smart, insulated radiator covers networked to central boiler control that reduces fuel consumption by 25% in all steam buildings; WindowSkin® by WexEnergy, an energy efficiency retrofit for windows; and Zinc8 Energy Solutions providing zinc-air based, long-duration, low-cost energy storage systems.
The “Hack the Building Code” innovation challenge winners are: The Anchor Thread by Ajustco which greatly reduces the need to drill in newly poured concrete by providing a ready to use anchor point available for use immediately upon stripping form work; aROBOTICSCo.’s Imager Robot requiring only two operators to perform more than four drops per day on a typical 25 story building; Sterilyft, an unmatched risk mitigation system for the purification and sterilization of the interior elevator air; and T2D2, a tool for autonomous detection and classification of façade damage and deterioration from photographic and video images that complements hands-on inspections mandated by the NYC Façade Inspection & Safety Program (FISP).
Winners did not receive monetary compensation.