STUDENT WATER INNOVATION PICKS UP PEOPLE’S VOTE PRIZE

A team of London students hoping to clean up the nation’s waters with their invention scooped a prize at a national awards ceremony.

The students, from Imperial College London, have created Qualboat – an autonomous boat that surveys water quality and uses AI to make intelligent predictions.

Engineering students Julia Gong Pinho, 21, and Rose Zheng, 20, partnered with Computing student Charlie Campbell, 20, and Physics student Aidan Randall, 21, created Qualboat on their way to winning a prize at their university’s WE Innovate competition which was part-funded by charity EIBF.

And now, after competing in EIBF’s Champion of Champions Competition against their peers from across the UK, the team picked up the In-Show Public Vote award and £500 in prize money.

Charlie said: “Growing up in the UK, we have witnessed first-hand the deterioration of our waters. For some of us, we grew up looking at sewage being dumped into the River Mersey near our homes. Our hope is that Qualboat can be used to catalyse a change in the industry, facilitating a clean-up of our waters, creating safe spaces for communities to use and allowing wildlife to thrive.”

The students say their innovation provides a faster and more comprehensive way of collecting water quality data, while operating at a lower cost than traditional methods and hope that it will allow water companies to better measure their water quality.

The event, hosted by TV presenter and engineer Rob Bell, was the culmination of a year of EIBF-sponsored enterprise competitions held across UK universities, with thousands of undergraduate and graduates taking part.

Each year, EIBF champions business education for engineers and supports universities by giving them grants to award prizes to engineering students who develop ideas that can make a positive impact on society.”