James Dyson Award 2020: At-home breast cancer screening device and a novel new material to generate renewable electricity BOTH win global prize

HONG
KONG SAR -�Media OutReach - 19 November 2020 – 2020 was a record-breaking year for the
James Dyson Award, which
has now financially supported 250 promising inventions from young engineers and
scientists around the world. Despite this year’s context, the Award received
its highest number of entries, and the quality was exceptional — highlighting
the ingenuity of young inventors. The two winners, who each receive £30,000,
solve significant problems of global importance: women missing breast cancer
screenings and sustainable methods to effectively generate renewable energy.

 

The Blue Box is the International
winner of the James Dyson Award 2020. Invented by 23-year-old Judit Giró Benet,
it is a new way to detect breast cancer, at-home, using a urine sample.

 

AuREUS System Technology is the
first ever Sustainability winner of the James Dyson Award 2020. Invented by
27-year-old Carvey Ehren Maigue, it is a new material, made from waste crop,
which converts UV light into renewable energy.

 

Commenting on the 2020
James Dyson Award, Sir James Dyson says,

 

“Young people want to change the world,
and the engineers, scientists and designers who enter the James Dyson Award
demonstrate that they can. We have observed a growing number of ideas for
healthcare and improving sustainability, and it seemed invidious to choose
between such noble ideas, so we created two prizes this year, to support two
equally worthy inventions. Judit and Carvey are highly impressive individuals
who have made significant breakthroughs, I hope that they can use the James
Dyson Award as a springboard to future success.”

 

International winner — The
Blue Box, invented by Judit Giró Benet

 

The problem

This year’s International winner of the James Dyson Award was
inspired by the inventor’s mother’s diagnosis of breast cancer. Judit realised
that there is a global need for a less invasive and more accessible screening
process for breast cancer. Currently screening requires women to attend
hospitals or medical facilities and undergo an invasive, sometimes painful, and
often costly procedure. As a result, it is estimated that 40% of women skip
their breast cancer screening mammogram, resulting in 1 in 3 cases being
detected late, leading to a lower chance of survival^[1].

 

The solution

The Blue Box, invented by Judit Giro Benet
from Spain, is an at-home, biomedical breast cancer testing device that uses a
urine sample and an AI algorithm to detect early signs of breast cancer. The
device performs a chemical analysis of urine samples and sends the results to
the Cloud. Here, the AI based algorithm reacts to specific metabolites in the
urine, providing the user with a fast diagnosis. Judit and her team now plan to
work towards the final stages of prototyping, ready for human studies and
clinical trials, alongside vital patent filings.

 

On winning the International prize,
Judit says, “The
Blue Box, has the potential to make cancer screening a part of daily life. The
day that James Dyson told me that I had won the International prize was a real
turning point as the prize money will allow me to patent more extensively and
expedite research and development. But, most of all, hearing that he believes
in my idea has given me the confidence I need at this vital point.”

 

Sustainability winner — AuREUS
System Technology invented by Carvey Ehren Maigue

 

The problem

Many renewable energy sources suffer from intermittency: wind power
and solar power can only be generated in very specific environmental
conditions. Solar panels mostly capture and convert visible light into
renewable energy and must be facing the sun to do so. Current solar farms are
only built horizontally, never vertically and often placed on prime arable
farmland, meaning the land can’t be used to grow crops. Yet, there are
thousands of windows and other surfaces that could be repurposed.

 

The solution

The James Dyson Award’s first ever Sustainability Award winner is
tackling the challenge of how we could more effectively generate renewable
energy from light and upcycling waste in the process. AuREUS, invented by
Carvey Ehren Maigue from Mapua University in Manila, the Philippines, is a
material that can be attached to a pre-existing structures or surfaces such as
walls and windows to harvest UV light and convert it into visible light to
generate electricity. Current testing suggests that AuREUS can produce
electricity 48% of the time, compared to 10-25% in conventional photovoltaic
cells ^{[2] , [3]}.

 

Learning through failure

Carvey first submitted his idea to the
James Dyson Award in 2018 but did not reach the Awarding stages of the
competition. After further R&D into applications and different upcycled
waste crops, his invention is the Award’s first ever Sustainability winner. His
persistence to improve his idea and learn from setbacks mirrors James Dyson’s
ethos on failure — a key component to the design process fostered at Dyson.

 

After speaking to James Dyson, Carvey
says, “Winning the James Dyson Award is both a
beginning and an end. The end of years of doubting whether my idea would find
global relevance and the beginning of the journey of finally bringing AuREUS
System Technology to the world.”

 

The James Dyson Award International Runners-up

Scope
was invented by Ishan Mishra, Holden Beggs, Zhen Le Cao, Fernando J. Pena
Cantu, Alisha Bhanji from the University of Waterloo, Canada. Mobile phone cameras are unable to achieve high quality
zoomed photos, as the lenses cannot use physical movement to zoom without image
quality loss. Scope uses liquid crystals confined in a cell. When voltages are applied
to the crystals it allows for the lens’ optical wave front to be dynamically
shaped without physical movement, enabling a lossless camera zoom.

 

The
Tyre Collective was invented by Siobhan Anderson, Hanson Cheng, M
Deepak Mallaya, and Hugo Richardson from the Innovation Design Engineering
MA/MSc programme at Imperial College London and the Royal College of Art, UK. The Tyre Collective device uses
patent pending technology to capture tyre wear right at the wheel, so the particles
can be recycled and reused in new tyres or other materials such as ink; safeguarding us from the second largest microplastic
pollutant in our environment.

Notes to editors:

The
James
Dyson Award forms part of a wider
commitment by Sir James Dyson, to demonstrate the power of engineers to change
the world. The Dyson Institute of Engineering and Technology,
the James Dyson Foundation and James Dyson Award
encourage aspiring engineers, to apply their knowledge and discover new ways to
improve lives through technology. Since the competition first opened in 2005,
James Dyson has contributed over £100m to boundary-breaking concepts in
education and other charitable causes. The Award has supported nearly 250
inventions with prize money.

 

Hear more about the James Dyson Award on the
Dyson Newsroom here.

Please
click this link to download high-res images and videos: https://bit.ly/JDAIntWinners

About Dyson

Dyson is a global technology company
with engineering, research, development and testing operations in the UK,
Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines. Dyson directly employs over 16,000
people globally including 6,000 engineers and scientists. Drawing on its global
research and development network, Dyson is realising ambitious plans to develop
new technologies with global teams focused on solid-state battery cells,
high-speed electric motors, vision systems, machine learning technologies, and
artificial intelligence.