our students

Fang Wen (first from right)

LIM Xuan Hui, Year 3 Quantitative Finance, and his team members from NOC Shanghai emerged champions at the Shanghai Makers Hackathon under the Shanghai Science and Technology Festival held on 15 and 16 June.

He said, “We sought to address the social problem of the ‘phantom’ elderly who lead invisible lives in the community.”

The team devised a simple, easy-to-use dashboard for welfare organisations to track the elderly in their care. It pushes notifications to social workers to engage inactive seniors, with the hope of averting injuries or tragedies.

Their efforts also led to their winning the Young Technopreneur Award (2018). The team was one of 21 international and Chinese teams to compete in the hackathon.

LOW Zi An, Year 3 Life Sciences, and his team mate developed a rapid diagnostic liquid biopsy test kit for cancer that can be administered in a home setting. Based on Zinc Finger protein detection of circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA), the test kit relies on BRET (Bioluminescence Resonance Energy Transfer) as the principal mechanism for ctDNA detection. The low-cost test kit is easy to use, and saves time and money. It can be modified to allow for the detection of multiple cancers at the same time, and its ease of use makes it suitable for home use. The test is also done ex vivo.

This innovative solution beat healthtechnology teams from around the world to become champions in the Mundipharma Cancer Care Challenge on 28 June. The Challenge seeks game-changing solutions harnessing technology to change the lives of cancer patients.

FOO Tun Shien, Year 2 Environmental Studies, and his team mates were selected from over 2,000 entries worldwide as finalists in the global Ericsson Innovation Awards 2019 in Sweden on 11 December. Participants developed novel ideas to harness the power of water and underwater material environments to address global challenges.

The team created fully automated “smart” ocean vacuum robots, with seawater-powered batteries, to collect microplastics via manta-ray inspired filtering mechanisms that rely on satellite communication for positioning, cross-communication and autonomous movement.

Tun Shien said, “We are just getting started in taking this innovation to greater heights to create a positive impact on the environment.”

INTERNATIONAL HACKATHONSOur students are increasingly tapping into their experiences and real-lifeissues to create winning innovations at various international hackathons.

Destigmatising menopause

During a stint at the NUS Overseas Colleges Programme (NOC) Stockholm, FANG Wen, Year 3 Chemistry, and her team members emerged champions of theMcKinsey Digital Challenge at the Stockholm Tech Festival, Europe’s largest all-female hackathon, held on 7 and 8 September.

The team’s idea, Eggfree, is a business-to-business service solution that conducts experiential learning workshops at the workplace, to ‘normalise’ the topic of menopause by sparking conversations about it.

The team was inspired to create something novel that is applicable to women on a daily basis. Fang Wen said, “It was an eye-opening experience to be able to work on taboo topics like menopause. I met many others who are likewise trying to develop solutions to improve women’s lives.”

The team faced strong competition from more than 800 participants, but edged out other teams to take home the top prize!

Tracking well-being of elderly

Diagnostic biopsIES in a home setting

Cleaning the ocean of microplastics

Low Zi An (fifth from right)

Lim Xuan Hui (first from left)

Foo Tun Shien (second from left)

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