Ukrainian startup SolarGaps will participate in Global Solutions Program supported by Google, NASA and Singularity University. The 10-week program is scheduled to take place on the campus of NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California.

SolarGaps are smart blinds that generate electricity from solar energy. Yevhen Erik, the SolarGaps founder, first came up with the idea in 2015 and since then the startup has attracted more than 150 000$. Its investors included Effective Investments Company as well as a few individual investors.

The idea of SolarGaps is pretty simple: solar modules are installed into the regular window blinds and can generate up to 100 kW per month. It is estimated that installing smart blinds on one window would cost 300$, which is considerably less than installing solar batteries. Moreover, people living in apartments with a limited access to the roof can benefit from using this innovation.

The first 50 sq meters of SolarGaps have been already installed in Nigeria and the blinds have been exhibited in a number of places in the USA, Israel, Spain and UAE. Last week the sales have officially started in Ukraine.

It is the first time ever that Ukrainians will take part in Global Impact Challenge and this time with two participants – apart from SolarGaps, a Chemistry student, Danylo Bash was accepted for the program. He aims to extract rare hi-tech metals in ocean currents using the technology of selective sorbents. This idea can also be used to control the oxidation of the oceans as well as CO2 water purification.

By the way, SolarGaps participated in Tech Expo at IT Arena 2016. The startup exhibited their product along with other 24 innovations which were designed or produced in Ukraine.

Photo credit: SolarGaps