Jindal Student Awarded with Hall of Fame Scholarship for Environmental Innovation

Hazem Elshorbagy, a full-time MBA student at UT Dallas’ Naveen Jindal School of Management, was recently awarded with a highly competitive scholarship from the Texas Business Hall of Fame Foundation for his environmental achievement.

Elshorbagy has worked to refine biodiesel from algae, a possible clean energy alternative to crude oil. Using the University as his laboratory, Elshorbagy has had the opportunity to test the effectiveness of his ideas to improve trash hauling.

To honor his work, the Texas Business Hall of Fame Foundation has presented Elshorbagy with one of its $15,000 2015 scholarship. The scholarships- which were raised this year from $10,000- are awarded each year to graduate business students across Texas who have shown demonstrable leadership skills.

For Elshorbagy, his primary focus is “monetizing stability”. According to the young entrepreneur, making environmental efforts more cost effective for the oil and gas industry could be crucial to maintaining the environment.

In order to tackle the problem of efficient trash removal, Elshorbagy launched the startup ‘Know Your Waste’, which will track waste levels and only alert for hauling when they are completely full. Waste dumpsters are often emptied when only 40% full, increasing the transportation costs of the waste collection industry. With assistance from the assistant director of energy conservation and sustainability at UT Dallas, Thea Junt, Elshorbagy was able to place sensors in campus dumpsters in order to test the effectiveness of his plan. With money from his scholarship, Elshorbagy plans to develop software for his startup.

Assistant dean for MBA programs at Jindal, Lisa Shatz, applauds Elshorbagy’s hard work as emblematic of what one can achieve with an MBA. “I tell the students on day one that you get out of an MBA program what you put into it. Hazem is living proof of that,” she said.

regions: Dallas

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