Samsung UK Unveils the Next Generation of Tech Entrepreneurs With ‘Solve For Tomorrow’ Competition Semi-Finalists
LONDON, UK – 16th March 2021 – Samsung Electronics Ltd. has announced today the 25 semi-finalists in its Gen-Z tech competition ‘Solve for Tomorrow’. The youth competition, which is running for the first time in the UK, has seen teams from across the country respond to the brief and submit ideas to help tackle one of four key challenges faced by society: education, environment, diversity & inclusion, and social isolation.
Entrants who have applied to the competition have taken inspiration for their innovations from all areas of society, including events from the past year, with one idea looking to tackle the way to support those students who haven’t been able to access education. Others have looked to wider societal issues such as homelessness and have explored the use of apps to tackle the waste problem facing communities across the UK.
The chosen semi-finalists, aged between 16-25, are now through to the next stage of ‘Solve for Tomorrow’, where they will be further developing their ideas. With the support and expertise of a dedicated Samsung mentor and Digital Catapult, the UK’s leading digital innovation centre, participants will evolve their initial thinking, with the hopes of getting through to the next round of judging to transform their concepts into reality.
The lucky finalists are in the running to receive six months of support from Samsung and Digital Catapult to help them realise the scope of their ideas, in addition to a £10,000 cash prize. Runners up in the competition will receive additional prizes and Samsung products.
Commenting on the announcement, Jessie Soohyun Park, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility at Samsung Electronics UK explained, “Through our ‘Solve for Tomorrow’ programme, we hoped to find young people from across the UK who are driven by the desire to make positive change in their communities and a brilliant idea to use tech to help them achieve it. The calibre of entrants we received has been incredible. We have been moved by the personal stories shared and humbled by their innovative approach to solving the issues they told us mattered to them. As a business, we’re dedicated to continue providing young people with a platform to develop their skills and confidence to grow into the next generation of innovators. I’m excited to see what’s next for our finalists, as they go through to the next stage of our programme.”
Geraldina Iraheta, Chief Commercial Officer at Digital Catapult added: “At a moment in time when young people are facing many obstacles, we’ve been truly inspired by the wide range of ambitious, innovative ideas to create positive, meaningful and lasting change. We’re looking forward to guiding the semi-finalists through the next stage of Solve for Tomorrow, helping them to innovate and build upon their initial thinking about tackling society’s biggest challenges. What’s clear from this talented group is that the young people of today are well positioned to be the leaders of tomorrow.”
To find out more about the ‘Solve for Tomorrow’ competition, visit: www.samsung.com/uk/solvefortomorrow
About the Solve for Tomorrow Semi-finalists
| Team no. | The idea | Category |
| Team 1 | The team want to create a product to increase detection of methane gas leakages from natural gas and coal plants that often remain undetected and unrepaired for a long-time. | Environment |
| Team 2 | Team 2 are looking to create an intuitive, technology-enabled system for viewing the environmental impact of a brand while shopping, raising awareness amongst customers of the impacts their purchasing decisions have on the environment. | Environment |
| Team 3 | Team 3’s idea is to create a solution for rough sleepers in the UK, giving them the chance to have somewhere secure to store their belongings, and apply for essential services. | Social isolation |
| Team 4 | According to the UNCHR only 56% of refugees who come to the UK have found work. This lack of work and ability to be involved in meaningful employment, often leaves them feeling isolated from society, and stops them from integrating with the community. Team 4 hope to help refugees make their steps into the UK job market. | Diversity and inclusion |
| Team 5 | The UK has an increasingly aging population, this comes with a set of problems for those who are living longer, including isolation and serious health problems. Team 5 hopes to help tackle this by developing a digital product that tackles social isolation whilst managing chronic disease in later life. | Social isolation |
| Team 6 | It is estimated that up to 1 in every ten people in the UK has some degree of dyslexia. Mind mapping is a great visual tool for people that struggle with reading comprehension. Team six will look to utilise cutting edge technologies to produce a mind map generator. | Education |
| Team 7 | Team 7 want to create a customer facing, online e-commerce platform, that allows shoppers to buy ethical and sustainable brands in one place without compromising on their style. | Environment |
| Team 8 | Working in social isolation, has been an inevitable upshot of the global pandemic, reducing the amount of social interaction, even with many people across the world having access to the internet. Team 8 would look to develop a program which uses Artificial Intelligence to generate insights into individual well-being and to find research-supported and tailored solutions that can improve the user’s well-being most effectively. | Social isolation |
| Team 9 | The average candle you buy in a UK store will burn for around six hours – and when its time is up, it’ll be sent to landfill, where it will remain for up to a thousand years. The UK candle market is already worth £1.9bn+ with sales jumping by 29% in October 2020. Team 9 would look to develop an app which helps people send their used or unwanted candles away to be recycled into new, eco-friendly candles available for purchase. | Environment |
| Team 10 | Over the last twenty-five years, both immigration and emigration have increased to historically high levels, with immigration exceeding emigration by more than 100,000 year on year since 1998. As of 2014, more than 295,800 migrants describe loneliness and isolation as their biggest challenge in London. Team 10 hopes to create a digital safe space helping young BAME settlers overcome the barrier of making friends in a foreign place while giving them a sense of belonging. | Social isolation |
| Team 11 | Over the course of the pandemic, high infection rates have led to the necessary closure of schools across the UK. This has inevitably resulted in children’s learning being interrupted and stalled. Team 11 want to create a software that combines voice recognition and other foreign language learning technologies to develop reading and vocabulary skills in children (or potentially also including adults who are unable to read). | Education |
| Team 12 | There are currently no affordable means for Key Stage 12 students to precisely identify and address their fundamental knowledge gaps and personalise their learning, reducing their academic performance. Team 12 hope to create an AI-driven learning platform that designs personalised study plans for students that addresses their fundamental knowledge gaps. | Education |
| Team 13 | During the pandemic, we saw cities across the world close their doors, and turn off the lights. In the UK this left 12 million students stuck at home often working in busy environments, without access to key utilities such as Wi-Fi. Team 13 will look to develop a product that will help support students find, quiet and safe spaces to work with access to sufficient services that will help support their education. | Education |
| Team 14 | Despite the UK’s growing diversity, medical research that benefits a diverse population is not growing. Team 14 will look to develop an app that makes participating in research trials, clinical studies easier for minorities. The app will also look to connect minorities who have suffered from illnesses that are typically under-researched for their ethnic group to researchers in that field (and information). | Diversity and inclusion |
| Team 15 | London generates 7 million tonnes of waste, of which a staggering 54% is sent to landfills or incinerated with its annual waste bill currently standing in excess of £2 billion, a cost projected to increase substantially as its population grows. The city’s lack of a viable waste solution will see its landfill capacity maxed out by 2026. Team 15 hope to develop a mobile app that identifies items of your waste and tells you how to recycle them efficiently. | Environment |
| Team 16 | 65% of young women, aged 14 and above, that we engage with stated that they receive little-to-no support in personal and professional development. Globally, there is a lack of online content and courses suitable for upskilling adolescent women in key personal and professional development areas. Team 16 want to build an e-learning platform for young women, aged 14 and above, that consists of interactive and engaging content to support personal and professional development. | Education |
| Team 17 | As a society, we are increasingly reliant on other countries to grow our food, even though, as a nation we may be able to grow the food ourselves. Team 17 have designed and prototyped the first no-soil growing solution, that combines clean aesthetics and integrating machine learning to optimise growth and detect deficiencies automatically. | Environment |
| Team 18 | Team 18 will look to create augmented smart glasses to provide an intuitive educational experience for students worldwide without the need for supervision, which would have the capability to allow leading experts to teach disadvantaged medical students throughout the globe. | Education |
| Team 19 | Research by the Royal National Institute for Deaf People shows that 70% of people who are hard of hearing or deaf felt that their hearing loss prevented them from reaching their potential within the workplace. Team 19 wants to bridge the gap in communication by developing an app and specialist software to teach the UK British Sign Language for free/low cost. | Social isolation |
| Team 20 | According to AgeUK approximately 3.6 million older people live alone with 1.9 million feeling ‘ignored or invisible’. New technology can be overwhelming for them to learn especially in a world where a lot of services and interactions are going digital; creating feelings of anxiety or reluctance to try new products that keep the rest of the world connected. Team 20 want to develop an easy to use modular smart radio, staying in touch with family has never been easier. | Social isolation |
| Team 21 | Team 21 want to develop an augmented reality gaming app that encourages users to explore city’s volunteering opportunities. | Social isolation |
| Team 22 | The issue with existing apps in the sustainability space is that they only cover a portion of tackling an individual’s carbon footprint. Team 22 has produced a new kind of social platform for sustainability including carbon tracking and offsetting tools to educational resources whilst socialising with friends. | Environment |
| Team 23 | Team 23 has developed a digital clothing and AR Market place. The team believes the future of fashion is digitisation, customisation, AR, and VR to reduce material costs and its impact on the environment. | Environment |
| Team 24 | Team 24 wants to democratise access to businesses, giving consumers a greater understanding of how things are made, and who is involved in making them. They believe that through the creation of their app, they will be able to give users access to a world of opportunity through creating connections between. | Education |
| Team 25 | A national lockdown saw thousands of students negatively affected as they were cut off from classmates and human interaction, on top of pressures to manage their finances Team 25 has created a platform with the aims to support students to stay connected whilst encouraging them to be more sustainable. | Environment |
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