FOR their innovative inventions, Filipino youth were victorious in the fourth annual Imake.wemake: create. innovate. Collaborate Competition.

Organized by the Department of Science and Technology-Science Education Institute and supported by the Gokongwei Brothers Foundation, the competition was overseen by a team of judges comprised of veteran engineers from the country’s top universities.

Among the innovations of young inventors submitted for the contest is a hands-free computer interface with a built-in medical scanner, a living computer-monitored wastewater filtering and management system, and a smart assistant for the visually impaired.

“This year’s entries highlight the brilliance and creativity of our young students. It’s a feat made all the more impressive by the fact that they were able to create, innovate, and collaborate despite the pandemic,” DOST-SEI Director Josette Biyo said in a statement.

YIP Winners

The Youth Innovation Prizes was awarded to students of Cavite Science Integrated School, Ramon Teves Pastor Memorial-Dumaguete Science High School, and the Science and Technology Education Center-Cebu Senior High School.

The winning entry of the CSIS was submitted under the title, “ABSCISSA: An Arduino-Based Smart Contactless Interface Integrated with Syndromic Surveillance and Alert System for Fomite-Mediated Transmission Mitigation.”

It was developed by Jimuel Clarence Malimban, John Kenneth Sanchez, and Aira Gayle Pugeda.

The CSIS’s winning entry is a hands-free computer interface that also doubles as a warning device that monitors the health of its users.

“It helps to minimize the risk of infection from contact with infected surfaces by using a computer-enabled camera to interpret users’ movements to potentially control everything from house appliances to ATMs,” the DOST-SEI said.

“It also monitors users’ vital signs and is capable of sending an alert to authorities if it senses anything out of the ordinary,” it added.

On the other hand, Ericka Elaine Diputado, Anjeli Merecido, and Shauna Tifora of RTPM-DSHS came up with a unique wastewater management system that uses live plants to filter out harmful chemicals in water that would otherwise be flushed down the drain.

The entry was titled, “Project WWW: A Multifunctional Waste-Water Web for Agrobotics.”

“The water passes through a biofilter of Tangan-tangan (Ricinus communis) plants, which naturally absorb toxic chemicals, before it goes through a standard filter setup. The whole process is carefully overseen via computer-enabled sensors that constantly monitor the water quality,” DOST explained.

Meanwhile, STEC-CSHS’s winning entry was a smart assistant that helps visually impaired users to know what’s around them and even to read nearby signs and text.

Entitled “Project BlindSpot: Arduino-Based Object Distance Measurement, Identification and Optical Character Recognition Using YOLO Algorithm”, the invention was developed by Johann Emir Margallo, Kate Ashley Liao, and Ron Marc Cañete.

“The head-mounted device not only alerts the presence of nearby obstacles but also indicates the distance of these objects. The system can also identify and read aloud text in the environment, such as on street signs and billboards,” the DOST-SEI said.

The YIP Awardees each received a P200,000 cash prize and a trophy.

Young Scientist Awardees and Scholars

The Imake.Wemake also conferred the GBF Young Scientist Award to CSIS students Malimban and Sanchez, and Merecido of RTPM-DSHS.

The DOST said the award is bestowed on the finalists who “demonstrated global competence through their innovation.”

The awardees received the GBF STEM Scholarship for Excellence – a conditional scholarship of P85,000 per academic year which allows them to pursue a STEM course of their choice at any of the country’s colleges or universities.

“We hope that these initiatives help ensure a pool of quality STEM professionals who can contribute to the Philippines’ national development in the future,” GBF Executive Director Grace Colet said.