Social Entrepreneurship Cup winner Joe Linzon (CLAS ’15) gets 2nd place in the UVA Cup

The winning teams of this year's University of Virginia Entrepreneurship Cup had one thing in common. Each envisioned a business that could solve a problem: a new online way to memorialize deceased loved ones; a way to charge a cell phone by simply walking around; a way to clean polluted water by harnessing solar energy with a portable solar still; even a way to use smartphones to collectively vote yea or nay to songs on a playlist.

Those business concepts moved one step closer to reality on Friday, when they won the four top spots in the 2011 E-Cup, along with shares of $40,000 in prize money.