Ideas on sustainable, vegan leather and programme to aid hearing-impaired children clinch top prizes at Samsung Solve for Tomorrow 2020 competition

A new Samsung poll shows that Gen Zs in Singapore are most concerned about environmental issues, and 81 percent of them feel empowered to be actively involved in solving the nation’s challenges

SINGAPORE - Media OutReach - 30 June 2020 - Samsung Electronics Singapore today announced the winners of Solve for Tomorrow 2020 competition, with teams SUSKIN and JBSamsung taking home top honours for the Post-secondary and University categories respectively. The virtual grand finale of this competition, which took place on 26 June, saw 10 finalist teams -- five from each category -- pitching their ideas and showcasing their prototypes to a panel of seven judges.

Supported by the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) under National Infocomm Competition (NIC), this year's Solve for Tomorrow was launched on 26 February. The 10 finalist teams were shortlisted from over 200 teams comprising more than 640 students in Singapore.

The top team from each category walked away with $10,000 worth of Samsung products, internship opportunities with Samsung, $6,000 cash prize and a study trip¹.

"This year's Samsung Solve for Tomorrow has demonstrated that the youths in Singapore are fiercely passionate about the societal and environmental challenges faced in Singapore," said Eugene Goh, President, Samsung Electronics Singapore. "In these ambivalent times, it is ever important that we think out of the box to innovate fast and solve real-world issues. By challenging contestants to solve societal problems through technology, we aim to spark innovative thinking among our next generation of leaders."

In a Samsung online poll² comprising 110 Gen Z respondents in Singapore, climate change and environment sustainability challenges were rated as their most important concerns in the nation, followed by healthcare and mental health challenges, such as infectious diseases, chronic ailments and mental illnesses. The poll was conducted at the sideline of the Solve for Tomorrow competition and its goal was to find out Gen Z's perspective on the different social challenges that the nation faces and how they are playing their part to address these issues.

Gen Z's top four most important societal and environmental concerns in Singapore

The poll also found that the majority of Gen Z (85 percent) are optimistic that Singapore can solve the societal and environmental challenges it faces, and 81 percent of them feel empowered in solving these issues.

However, when it comes to what the respondents are doing to address the key challenges in Singapore, only eight percent are tackling these challenges by volunteering with NGOs and just 21 percent are working towards a career that can help solve these challenges. Just under half (45 percent) of the Gen Zs polled are tackling the societal and environmental issues by making changes to their lifestyle.

Solve for Tomorrow aims to encourage youth to take a more proactive approach in addressing Singapore's key challenges by providing them with a platform to ideate and apply their knowledge and skills across multiple disciplines, including Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) to make a meaningful impact in our community. Solve for Tomorrow reflects Samsung's investment in youth and its commitment to inspiring and developing the capabilities of the next generation of leaders so that they can fulfil their potential.

Entries showcase innovation and aspirations of Singaporean youths for the nation

The judges for Solve for Tomorrow 2020 consisted of an esteemed panel of industry leaders. They included:

• Eugene Goh, President of Samsung Electronics Singapore
• Terence Ng, Director, Innovation Office, Health Promotion Board
• Foo Hui Hui, Deputy Director, Digital Literacy and Participation, Infocomm Media Development Authority
• Chan Swee Hoon, Country Sales Director, Digital Transformation and Enterprise Sales, Intel Singapore
• Richard Koh, Chief Technology Officer, Microsoft Singapore
• Annabelle Chiong, Deputy Director of Venture Investing, SGInnovate
• Isabella Huang Loh, Chairman, Singapore Environment Council

The finalist teams were assessed based on creativity and feasibility of their ideas, presentation effectiveness, as well as how they were applying STEM knowledge to the challenges they have identified in one of these themes -- (1) environmental sustainability, (2) health and well being, (3) active ageing and (4) inclusive, harmonious society. This year, the public also got to vote for their favourite finalist team's idea and the competition received nearly 6,220 votes between 6 to 23 June 2020. The voting results were including in the teams' final scores. 

Winners of the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow 2020 competition

Post-secondary category

• 1^st prize: Republic Polytechnic -- SUSKIN, an all-vegan alternative to leather derived by converting food waste to textile, using biomaterials engineering for better sustainability.
• 2^nd prize: Republic Polytechnic -- Bam-Boots, a cost-effective, lightweight bamboo prosthetic designed to allow individuals with leg amputations move around easily. 
• 3^rd prize: Temasek Junior College -- TechBoards, a machine-learning mobile app to support technicians in accurate circuit board diagnosis, thereby reducing e-waste.
• People's Choice award³: Republic Polytechnic -- SUSKIN

University category

• 1^st prize: National University of Singapore -- DeafSpeak, a programme specially designed to aid visually-impaired children in learning and development.
• 2^nd prize: National University of Singapore -- LIBERO, a smart, convertible wheelchair-walker that provides independent and safe mobility for the elderly.
• 3^rd prize: National University of Singapore -- Movelei, a gamified fitness machine that encourages physical exercise as well as faciliates social interaction and cognitve engagements for the elderly.   
• People's Choice award³: National University of Singapore -- DeafSpeak

Post-secondary category winner: SUSKIN from Republic Polytechnic

The Post-secondary category winners, Sokwei Wong and Kai Lin Ong, have created SUSKIN, an all-vegan alternative to leather that is sustainable, durable and ethically-sourced. Tapping on biomaterial engineering to create vegan leather out of food waste, the winners aspire to provide a more sustainable textile substitute. This can help to reduce pollution and greenhouse gases emitted by the leather industry while still allowing consumers to enjoy the same functionalities of leather.

According to the Samsung poll², respondents highlighted promoting greater usage of recyclable materials as the most important element to them when it comes to environmental sustainability, with 36 percent of respondents indicating this as most important. This is followed by developing and implementing more energy efficient technologies (23 percent) and harnessing of alternative energy sources such as solar power (22 percent).

"We are thrilled to be one of the winners of the competition and glad that SUSKIN, our vegan leather idea resonated with the judges," said Sokwei Wong, team leader of SUSKIN. "When my teammate, Kai Lin, and I learnt the impact of the leather industry on our environment, we started looking at how we can create a sustainable, high quality alternative for consumers and promote a circular economy. Solve for Tomorrow is a proof-of-concept for us to grow our business model, explore new product lines and forge brand partnerships."

University category winner: JBSamsung from National University of Singapore

JBSamsung, University category winner comprising Zhang Zhi Yao and Hu Jia Jun, developed DeafSpeak, a programme for hearing-impaired children. The team aspires to enable audio-verbal therapists (AVTs) and caretakers to better engage in the child's development. The programme consists of three parts: a web portal for AVTs to assign tasks and remotely monitor users' learning progress; a mobile app that provides learning games to sustain motivation and real-time mouth shape correction for speaking; and a motion-activated phonetics activity to improve the vocabulary of hearing-impaired children.

This problem statement was supported by Samsung's online poll² which found that 41 percent believed that creating equal opportunities regardless of class, abilities and gender is the most important aspect to building an inclusive and harmonious society.

"In Singapore, there is a lack of AVTs to aid in hearing-impaired children's development," said Zhang Zhi Yao, team leader of JBSamsung. "Solve for Tomorrow gave us the opportunity to address challenges in this area through the creative use of technology, using facial recognition and artificial intelligence to improve our training curriculum and provide real-time feedback to the users. We hope to bring this solution to more hearing-impaired children in Singapore and help create a more level playing field for them in the future."

For more information on Solve for Tomorrow, visit https://www.samsung.com/sg/solvefortomorrow/.

About Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.

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