A Capstone Design invention created to produce clean drinking water in developing countries and a patch that delivers allergy medication to children co-developed by an engineering student are among the top winners in this year’s Canadian James Dyson Awards competition.
The two Waterloo projects are among the four runners-up of the competition’s national round, in which a team from the University of Toronto took first place.
Air2O, created as a 2017 fourth-year project by four chemical engineering students, is an inexpensive device made from recycled materials to produce clean water from the air in developing countries. The atmospheric water generator is able to produce up to three litres of drinking water within 24 hours.
During last spring’s Norman Esch Capstone Design Awards competition, team members said that the seeds for their idea were planted by watching
Seven months of research and hard work later, the Esch judges concluded the $40 device developed by students Suhail Lakhani, Ryan Jung, Ryan Fahey and Mohammad Ziauddin was worthy of backing as a potential business startup and awarded them $10,000.
Avro Life Science, co-founded by Shakir Lakhani, a second-year nanotechnology engineering student, and Keean Sarani, now a Waterloo doctor of
Lakhani and Sarani’s design inspiration came from having personally struggled with seasonal and food allergies since they were young and wanting to make medicating children easier for both kids and parents. Avro Life Science won $25K in last December’s Velocity Fund Finals for the startup’s solution to provide an alternative form of allergy medication to children without the hassle of pills and syrups.
Lakhani said that he and Sarani are delighted to have been chosen as a national runner up for the James Dyson Award.
"Keean and I are scientists at heart, but we've also worked to design a product that will help children everywhere, and maintain commercial viability at the same time," says Lakhani. "It's been an extremely rewarding process as we've progressed from our first prototypes in March 2016 to a functioning product, and we're excited to compete on the international stage!"
Both Avro Life Science and Air2O are in the running for this year’s international shortlist of 20 to be unveiled September 28. The international winner and finalists will be announced October 26.
Continuing to lead the way
It is the fourth year in a row that Waterloo projects have figured prominently in the prestigious contest started by James Dyson, the British inventor of the bagless Dyson vacuum cleaner. Last year, Medella Health, co-founded in 2013 by Waterloo nanotechnology engineering graduate Huayi Gao, won first place in the national competition and was shortlisted for the international award.
In 2015, Voltera V-One, a custom circuit board printer developed as a Capstone Design project by four engineering students, became the first Canadian startup to win the top prize in the international round.
Open to university students and recent graduates, the James Dyson Award program encourages and rewards innovative products or concepts that do a better job of solving tangible problems.