Spending time in the great outdoors is wonderful; the sights, the smells, the tranquility. It really brings you back to the days of our ancestors whose lives were shaped in the plains. The problem is that in the 21st century, we need to stay connected to the outside world. E-mails, sports scores, breaking news; we like to have our cake and eat it too. Those of us without an RV who don’t want to risk killing our car battery have had to suck it up and survive a few days without a smart device. Even resisting those temptations, it’s still nice to have some music to jam out to while in the mountains.

Materials scientists David Toledo and Paul Slusser wanted to make life more convenient for outdoorsmen in the United States, and potentially bring a scarce resource to people in third world countries. They are on the brink of doing just that. Their start-up company, Power Portal, is in the final stages of prototyping on a product called the PowerPot. The PowerPot will be able to create electricity for anyone with a hot surface and a cool liquid inside.