Auto roti maker wins Intel prize

The Intel+Berkeley cooperative attempt to promote fresh ideas has announced the three winners of its entrepreneurial push.

But we’ll start with the third prizewinner as that team, Zimplistic of the National University of Singapore, because it’s a roti maker.

The device – the Rotimatic – quickly and easily makes roti, the bread staple of most of North India.

It takes hours to make rotis from scratch but while there are frozen rotis in the supermarket, this unit is about the size of a microwave oven and it kneads, flattens and then roasts the roti. It can make one every two minutes.

The first prizewinner is Ihealth of China’s Tsinghua University, came up with a biodegradable bone screw technology, and picked up a check for $25,000 from the Intel Foundation.

Second prize went to CaptchaAd of the Technical University Munich. That team created a web technique that includes video advertising.