Innovative System to Warn Animals of Approaching Vehicles Wins Samsung’s Solve for Tomorrow competition

Samsung Electronics Australia has today announced the winners of Solve for Tomorrow, a nationwide competition challenging Australia’s next generation of innovators to unleash their creativity using STEM[1] to help solve a social issue they are passionate about.

Tasmania based, Meg Phillips, has won the overall prize of $10K to develop her innovative idea – using RFID Tech & Electronics Engineering to create a system to warn animals of approaching cars. This incredible concept signals to animals when they are near roadsides, reducing both wildlife casualties as well as keeping drivers safer.

“I’m thrilled to have won,” said Meg. “I’ve lived in Tasmania my whole life so it’s no surprise that I am an animal lover. Working with wireless communication led me to applying RFID between cars and animals. It feels so rewarding to have my years of hard work empower me to make functional and viable solutions to real-world problems. The prize money will go towards developing an improved prototype and working on feasibility. Watch this space!”

The runners up, both winning $5K in prize money, are The MedMakers from Newcastle NSW, who have created a powered air-purifying respirator for frontline healthcare workers dealing with COVID-19, and Hilife, also hailing from Newcastle, a mobile application for remote healthcare consultations with video calling capabilities and a rating system.

In addition to the prize money, all three winners have won a Samsung Tech Pack which includes a Smart Monitor M7, Galaxy Z Fold3 smartphone and Galaxy Tab S7 FE tablet.

“We’re so grateful for the opportunity,” said The MedMakers Team. “So many healthcare workers are at risk whilst caring for their patients during the COVID-19 pandemic and it’s taking its toll on the healthcare system. As student medical engineers, we wanted to address this issue, so developed our own powered air purifying respirators that remove the reliance on a perfect facemask fit. Winning this prize gives us more resources and confidence to further our idea and bring it to market.”

Hilife’s James & Casey said, “We are humbled to be receiving this generous prize. It will help with improving our processes and ability to begin testing and rolling out Hilfe. At the start of the pandemic, we saw a gap in healthcare and people’s access to essential services. This led us to building a more collaborative environment where patients felt heard through our company Intervergent, and then our mobile app, Hilfe. We are so excited about developing the app further and getting it to market to make a real impact within our society.” (Intervergent Group)

Two People’s Choice Awards are now up for grabs, a shortlist for voting is now open via https://www.samsung.com/au/solve-for-tomorrow/#VoteNow. The two People’s Choice winners will receive the Samsung Tech Pack. Possible winners include a community group to help tackle homelessness, a satellite solution to assist Australians’ response teams in dealing with Natural Disasters, and an easy-to-use cuff for paramedics to measure blood pressure, heart rate, respiration rate, oxygen saturation levels, and temperature.

Voting is open from today, Tuesday 25th January and closes 5pm Tuesday 1st February AEDT.

“The aspiration of Solve for Tomorrow was to unearth the next generation of Australian entrepreneurs who have ambitions to use innovation and critical thinking to solve real world issues,” said Shaneez Johnston, Head of Corporate Affairs, at Samsung Electronics Australia. “STEM skills are so vital to effective problem solving and ideation. The truly outstanding quality of entries we received really does highlight the bright young minds we have here in Australia and their ability to use STEM as a force for good.”

Samsung’s Solve for Tomorrow competition launched in Australia in November and ran for six weeks. Young Australians aged 18-24, were invited to upload a video to TikTok[2] or written entry to the Samsung website explaining the social issue that matters most to them and how they would solve it using STEM skills. Winners were selected based on a judging criteria which looked at relevance, creativity, feasibility, application of STEM, and overall presentation.*

The core objective of Solve for Tomorrow is to drive awareness of STEM learning to encourage more young people to consider the subjects that will impact on their future careers.

[1] Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths

[2] Entries can also be submitted via www.samsung.com/au/solve-for-tomorrow/