Tassie entrepreneur’s warning system for animals wins STEM innovation competition

strategies, Solve for Tomorrow

Tasmania’s Meg Phillips has won the overall prize of $10,000 in the Solve for Tomorrow competition, a nationwide competition organised by Samsung Electronics Australia to recognise Australia’s next generation of innovators who have unleashed their creativity using STEM to help solve a social issue they are passionate about.

The prize will allow Philips to develop her innovative idea of using radio-frequency identification (RFID) Tech and Electronics Engineering to create a system to warn animals of approaching cars, reducing both wildlife casualties as well as keeping drivers safer.

“I’ve lived in Tasmania my whole life so it’s no surprise that I am an animal lover,” Philips said. “Working with wireless communication led me to applying RFID between cars and animals. It feels so rewarding to have my years of hard work empower me to make functional and viable solutions to real-world problems. The prize money will go towards developing an improved prototype and working on feasibility. Watch this space!”

Two runners up both won $5000 in prize money. The MedMakers from Newcastle, NSW, have created a powered air-purifying respirator for frontline healthcare workers dealing with COVID-19, and Hilife, also from Newcastle, a mobile application for remote healthcare consultations with video calling capabilities and a rating system.

“We’re so grateful for the opportunity,” The MedMakers Team said. “Winning this prize gives us more resources and confidence to further our idea and bring it to market.”

And Hilife’s James Wood and Casey Tumbers said, “We are humbled to be receiving this generous prize. It will help with improving our processes and ability to begin testing and rolling out Hilife.”

In addition to the prize money, all three winners have won a Samsung Tech Pack which includes a Smart Monitor M7, Galaxy Z Fold3 smartphone and Galaxy Tab S7 FE tablet.

Yet to be announced are the two People’s Choice winners who will receive the Samsung Tech Pack. Possible winners include a community group to help tackle homelessness, a satellite solution to assist Australian response teams in dealing with Natural Disasters, and an easy-to-use cuff for paramedics to measure blood pressure, heart rate, respiration rate, oxygen saturation levels, and temperature. Voting is open on the Samsung website until 5pm Tuesday 1st February AEDT with the winners to be announced later that month.

“The aspiration of Solve for Tomorrow is to unearth the next generation of innovators in Australia,” Shaneez Johnston, Head of Corporate Affairs, at Samsung Electronics Australia said. “STEM skills are so vital to future career pathways. Through Solve For Tomorrow, we hope to inspire more young people to consider how these skills and knowledge can lead to fulfilling careers and also change our world for the better.

“The truly outstanding quality of entries we received really does highlight the bright young minds we have here in Australia and their ability to use STEM as a force for good,” Johnston added.

Samsung’s Solve for Tomorrow competition launched in Australia in November and ran for six weeks. Young Australians aged 18-24, were invited to upload a video to TikTok or a written entry to the Samsung website explaining the social issue in their community that matters to them and how they would solve it using STEM skills. Winners were selected based on a judging criteria which looked at relevance, creativity, feasibility, application of STEM, and overall presentation.