A team from University of Minnesota-Twin cities civil engineering class are scheduled for a two week trip on May 26 to the financial capital to assess and implement their plans in the slums, the same impoverished area that provided the backdrop for the Oscar-winning movie, "Slumdog Millionaire."

The students are winners of the first-ever Acara Challenge sponsored by the Minnesota-based Acara Institute, a non-profit institute that tackles global problems through sustainable business solutions.

The University of Minnesota students were joined by four teammates at Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay: Vivek Sharma, Bholu Ram Yadav, Shikha Pandey, and Jayendra Jadhav.

"It's exciting for students when they can immediately apply what they learn in class, and the competition motivated them to exceed expectations," says professor John Gulliver, who taught the class Engineering Design for Sustainable Development in which the University of Minnesota teams developed their plans.

"They could make a real difference in people's lives. The team will assess the situation, talk with local customers and begin transforming their winning concept into reality, he

adds.

When implemented, the students' program will be housed in Mumbai's existing Slum Sanitation Program buildings, and will use a pre-existing customer base and infrastructure.

They will combine source water storage with ultraviolet water treatment and a novel distribution system that will supply 50 litres per day of clean, low-cost water to

community participants, as well as 10 litres of potable water to pay-per-use customers at a reasonable rate.

For the students, winning the Acara Challenge is just the first step in the process, said Erin Binder, executive director for the Acara Institute and a business manager at 3M.

"The next step is to turn this business plan into a reality," she says.

The winning team, named ReachOut Water Solutions, include Brian Bell, Mark Lundgren and Tony Schrempp, civil engineering undergraduate students, Karthikeyan Bharath Kumar, a landscape architecture graduate student, a civil engineering undergraduate student in the university's Institute of Technology.

"With help from mentors and professors, we were able to combine engineering and business in developing our plan. We are all very excited to have the opportunity to travel to India to begin the process of putting the plan into action," says Brian Bell, a member of the ReachOut Water Solutions team.

Seven teams of university and high school students from Minnesota, Illinois and India participated in the Acara Challenge. The teams were assisted by mentors from Honeywell, 3M, Cargill, Medtronic, Siemens, Goodrich and many other American and Indian organizations.

The teams' plans were presented earlier this week before a panel of judges comprised of leading technology and business leaders from the United States, Mexico and India.