Winners of the BRICS Young Innovator Prize Competition
were announced during the BRICS Young Scientist Forum, which took place on
21‒25 September.
The contest’s aim was to encourage best research and
innovation projects in three areas: ecology, materials science and the use of
artificial intelligence in environmental protection and materials science. The jury
consisting of scientists and innovation experts from each of the BRICS
countries evaluated the contestants based on whether their projects offered
innovative and technological solutions to the current social, economic and
environmental issues in the BRICS countries.
Gift Lubele, researcher from South Africa, won the
first prize in the competition for developing a waste recycling programme,
which he calls “an Uber for waste recycling.” The South African innovator
proposed a programme for coordinating people who “produce” rubbish and people
who process it – namely, by managing the waste collection and recycling
process, from the rubbish bin to the recycling plant, and building relationships
with recycling companies to boost the efficiency of the waste recycling
industry and reducing the processing costs. The project creator also proposed
possible uses for recycled materials – for example, clothing production.
Winners of the BRICS Young Innovator Prize
Competition:
1st place: Gift Lubele (South Africa), for
a waste recycling programme;
2nd place: Ivan Shortsky (Russia), for the
development of eco-materials;
3rd place: Hanyang Wang (China), for the
development of automatic environmental monitoring systems.
Russian prize winner Ivan Shortsky representing Kuban State Technological University commented: “The Forum was held online for the first time; however, this did not prevent the participants from collaborating efficiently. It was exciting to hear reports by other participants and establish contacts with colleagues from different countries. Perhaps eventually, we will come up with a new joint project. This year we focused on developing eco-materials based on food waste.”
The Roscongress Foundation, a socially oriented non-financial
development institution and a major organiser of
international conventions, congress, exhibitions, business, social and
sporting, public, and cultural events, is in charge of organising events as part of the Russian Federation’s
chairmanship in the BRICS association.
Official website of the Russian Federation’s chairmanship: brics-russia2020.ru.
