Marine Bioplastic Wins International James Dyson Award 2019

Dyson announced this year’s international James Dyson Award winner today. 24-year-old Lucy Hughes from the University of Sussex (UK) has won the title for her project, MarinaTex which attempts to solve the problem of both single-use plastics and inefficient waste streams by harnessing fish waste to create a unique plastic alternative.

Additionally two projects were announced as runners’ up:

·   Afflo by Anna Bernbaum, Dyson School of Dyson Engineering, Imperial College London (UK): Afflo is an AI-enabled wearable device that monitors asthmatic symptoms and predicts triggers, allowing users to make data driven decisions about their asthma management.

·   Gecko Traxx by Ryan Tilley, RMIT University, Sydney (Australia): Gecko Traxx is a portable and affordable manual wheelchair accessory that enables off-road access. The unique tyre cross-section is unobtrusive when fitted to the wheelchair and expands when in contact with the ground, increasing the contact surface area by three times when needed.

There were three entries which were eligible from India for the international competition: the India national winner Ashwathy Satheesan’s project ‘Fleo’, Team Caeli from the Manav Rachna Institute of Research and Studies who invented Caeli - an Anti-Pollution mask designed for Asthmatic and COPD patients living in poor air quality regions, and Sanicle - a portable, low maintenance and a cost-effective toilet for people without a fixed residence, developed by Aditya Vora, also from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad. Out of these three, Caeli was shortlisted for the final top 20 pool.