With 20 exciting innovations on the finalist list for the 2012 UTS/UniQuest Trailblazer competition, preparation is well underway at UTS to defend the national Trailblazer title.
Neonatal incubator units, methods to reduce the cane toad population in Australia, pattern-matching smartphones that can lead you to serendipitous moments on the street and an intelligent situation awareness support system are just a handful of the innovations being put forward by the finalists.
“In previous years we’ve seen some fantastic innovations and this year looks to be no different. This is a really strong finalist field” said Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research), Professor Attila Brungs.
Teams will compete with a series of five-minute pitches to a panel of commercialisation and intellectual property experts, who will assess the level of innovation and market potential of each idea in order to choose a winner.
Winners and runners up in the student and open categories of the UTS competition will then head to Brisbane for the national finals, facing off against winners from other institutions who also employ UniQuest’s commercialisation services.
And they’ll have big shoes to fill.
“UTS won the open category in the 2011 inaugural national final of the Trailblazer competition. Looking at this year’s roundup and the projects they’ll be putting forward in the UTS competition, I think we’re going to maintain those really high standards and have a fantastic 2012 event,” said Professor Brungs.
This year’s 20 finalists are:
Student category
- Abdallah Al Sabbagh, FEIT, Smart mobile communication for the fourth generation (4G)
- Andrew Ashton, UTS Business School, Eye Buy
- Danilo Valeros Bernardo, FEIT, Enciphering the thoughts: towards the ultimate security
- Cecilia Eriksson, Science, Incubator incorporating Kangaroo Mother Care
- Louisa Giblin, Science, Cardiac autonomic biomarker for early dementia detection
- Muhammad Islam, Science, Novel bacteria implicated in diarrhoea
- Samantha Khoury, Science, miLife personalised cancer therapy
- Leonard Marquart, Science, Transgenic bee defeating Varroa mite
- Mohsen Naderpour, FEIT, Intelligent situation awareness support system
- Sagga Naji, Science, Synthetic melittin patch for arthritis
- Lachlan Onegin-Ward, Science, Eradication of the cane toad
- Md Akhlaquor Rahman, FEIT, Exoskeleton for hand rehabilitation following stroke
- Vahid Vakiloroaya, FEIT, A novel solar-assisted air conditioning system
- Zahra Zabolizadeh, Science, Predict bone strength by MR image analysis
Open category
- Daniel Franklin, FEIT, Cloud-based ubiquitous virtual wireless networks
- Benjamin Johnson, FEIT, Exacto Momento: serendipity as a service
- Jianchun Li, FEIT, Smart seismic base isolator
- Kristine McGrath, Science, Supplement to treat wellness not illness
- Kumbesan Sandrasegaran, FEIT, Smart framework for broadband testing
- Zenon Chaczko, FEIT, Internet-of-things gateway for broadband applications
