Abiodun Iwayemi

IIT Armour College of Engineering student Abiodun Iwayemi (Ph.D. EE Candidate) was awarded second place in the ComEd Student Innovation Contest, held October 23, 2014. ComEd, the largest electric utility company in Illinois, announced the contest challenging students in their service area to create a piece of technology or a service that would help low-income customers use smart-meter information to manage their electric bill and save money.

Iwayemi was selected as one of the five finalists given the opportunity to present their ideas in front of a panel of judges that included Jason Blumberg, CEO and managing director of the Energy Foundry; Emile Cambry Jr., professor at North Park University’s Kellogg School of Management and founder of entrepreneurship incubator BLUE1647; Karen Weigert, chief sustainability officer for the City of Chicago; and Andrea Zopp, CEO and president of the Chicago Urban League.

Iwayemi’s project, a smart-meter data-collection and analysis platform called mPower, would communicate with ComEd’s smart meters to show a home’s energy usage in real-time. It even provides estimated running costs for major appliances in order to determine where energy savings could be made. The user is encouraged to better manage their energy usage by accruing mPower awards points based how much energy they save each month. The “Biggest Saver” in each zip code would be awarded prizes and would be featured on social media to share energy-savings tips.

To learn more about Iwayemi’s project, watch his video.