UBC student wins prize, prestige for phone charging travel mug

A University of British Columbia student is back in the headlines as the world marvels at her latest invention, which could change the way you charge your cell phone.

Ann Makosinski, 18, has invented a phone charging travel mug that uses the heat from hot beverages to create energy.

She won the Quest Climate Change Grant, alongside five other Canadian recipients earlier this month and was awarded $50,000 in prize money.

She says she got the idea for the mug when she noticed some common problems among her friends – their phone’s battery power and drinking really hot coffee.

Her invention even attracted the attention of Jimmy Fallon and Makosinski debuted her idea on the Tonight Show.

The eDrink recovers some of the lost heat of your drink and converts it into electricity, so you eventually have enough charge to give your iPod or iPhone a little burst of energy.

Makosinski says the grant that she won will give her the opportunity to further develop her product design and bring the technology to market.

This is actually the second time the young inventor has appeared alongside Fallon on the Tonight Show. She was also on in 2014 to show off a flashlight powered by body heat, which she invented when she was only 15 years old.

She also won a prize in her age category at the Google Science Fair for that flashlight.