ZutaCore, an Israeli start-up founded by members of Kibbutz Bror Hayil, won last week's Eco-Thon Hackathon event for innovation and sustainability.
ZutaCore took home the first-place prize for their sustainable and money-saving generator that produces energy from the water heated by the cooling process of computer servers.
The Eco-Thon event, March 18-19, was organized by the Kibbutz Industry Association, Sapir Academic College and the Shaar HaNegev South-Up technology incubator, for professionals, experts and enthusiasts from the region to challenge themselves to develop new ideas for innovation and sustainability in industry. In addition to data server water recycling, the hackathon also touched on subjects such as communication in remote areas, and weather forecasting and floods.
"The college, which is a major anchor in the Negev area, is happy with the wonderful collaboration with all the organizers involved, led by the kibbutz industry, the Negev tech community, and the technology incubator South-Up, for their encouraging innovation, entrepreneurship and creativity. We see a lot of thinking about finding solutions to industry challenges in the field of sustainability, which affects us all," remarked Sagit Platin-Yifrach, head of innovation at the Sapir Academic College.
Servers generate a great deal of heat when operating together in an enclosed room, and unless they are cooled, the machines will overheat and suffer lower operability and even sustain damage. The cooling process for servers requires a significant amount of electrical power. A generator that produces energy from the cooling process would mean that energy could be recycled and less electricity would be needed to cool the servers.
ZutaCore, founded in 2016, is headquartered in San Jose, California, but still has its research and development facilities in Israel. They specialize in making server cooling systems more economical, and finding and providing energy-use solutions and systems for their clients.