There has to be a better way.

Scientists, inventors, entrepreneurs and dreamers of all kinds ponder those words constantly. But those who find a better way soon learn that it's not worth much without a plan to sell it.

That marriage of innovative product and marketing is at the heart of the Big Bang, the annual business-plan competition at the University of California, Davis. A $15,000 prize goes to the team whose proposal is judged most likely to succeed.

The contest draws creative proposals that often are driven by students stretching their entrepreneurial muscles for the first time. In previous years, the prize money has helped ideas grow into businesses.

"It's a very good springboard," said UC Davis graduate and entrepreneur John Argo, a 2005 Big Bang finalist. Argo finished second in the contest and used his $3,000 prize money to help launch Bloo Solar, a West Sacramento-based firm that develops and builds solar photovoltaic technologies. The company remains, but Argo has since moved on to another venture.

This year, the Big Bang first prize was awarded in May to a three-person team of UC Davis engineering and business graduate students. They call their project UltraV, a system to disinfect water with pulsing ultraviolet light instead of toxic chlorine.

The team members are an eclectic group, bringing different skills and interests to the project.

Team leader Elisabetta Lambertini is an environmental engineering doctoral candidate learning the ways of business at the college's Center for Entrepreneurship.

Lambertini worked with Bassam Younis, a UC Davis professor in the department of civil and environmental engineering who developed the UltraV technology. She provides scientific expertise and leadership for the project, which the team hopes will be the next wave in wastewater treatment.

"With drought and the energy crisis, this is able to address both – the things are so linked," Lambertini said recently at the campus's wastewater treatment plant, where the team's process will soon be tested.

The sciences and people's effects on the environment have intrigued Lambertini from her youth in northern Italy, to her studies at the University of Bologna, to doctoral studies today.

"I pursued an engineering degree to offer solutions, to go upstream enough to tackle problems," she said. "I wanted to do more than point fingers at problems. Engineering gave me a chance to solve those problems."

Mananya Chansanchai, a 29-year-old energy efficiency fellow at Pacific Gas and Electric, is the team's vice president for business development. She will receive her MBA in graduation ceremonies Saturday and is a strong believer that businesses have a responsibility to improve people's lives.

"It's important to use the power of the business world to do good," Chansanchai said. That idea drew her to the UltraV concept late last year.

"This fits all of the pieces together. It's good for the environment, good for society and, hopefully, it's a viable business," she said.

As a high-schooler in Florida, Chansanchai said, she dreamed of owning a business. At the time, though, she was thinking more of a restaurant or nightclub.

James Bui, a 35-year-old first-year MBA student, heads the team's sales and marketing efforts. Bui considers himself an entrepreneur on a temporary detour into the corporate world.

"It's the whole reason why I signed up for the MBA program," he said. "I want to own my own company someday, so this gives me a lot of encouragement."

The UltraV project was a challenge for Bui, who struggles to balance a schedule that includes work for a pharmaceutical sales company and grad school in the Bay Area, project meetings in Davis and time with his family, which including children ages 1 and 3.

"It was pretty hectic," he said. "It's a lot of work, it's a challenge, but it's rewarding."

The team started to form last fall, when Lambertini and Chansanchai met as analysts at the campus's Energy Efficiency Center.

Lambertini had worked alongside Younis as he developed the xenon UV technology technology, borrowing from a method NASA uses to sanitize food in space.

Call The Bee's Darrell Smith, (916) 321-1040.