Image by Flickr user casch52

On Wednesday, February 11, ThinkTEC Innovation Summit awarded cash and aid to some of the best business ideas coming from of South Carolina's citizens.

Mike Switzer of Richland County took home the $5,000 grand prize for his electric outlet that automatically shuts off power to plugged in items that aren't in use.

Yep, if your cell phone charger is plugged in but not connected to your phone it's still sucking pennies in energy.

I have to admit, I think Switzer's idea is pretty cool. Hopefully he can develop a cheap way of implementing it.

Bryan Pierce Bowers Jr. of Charleston County took home first place in the "Wild Card" category for GPS-powered stolen-bike-recovering BikeBack.

Also wining a honorable mention was Ron Fulbright's "Spockets," a magnetically attachable pocket -- which is just the type of entry I'd expect from a guy who won last year's grand prize for a nano-sensor device to detect chemicals.

At any rate, head over to The Charleston City Paper for some colorful descriptions of the entrants, and then head to The Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce for who the winners were.