Pioneering student team from the Netherlands wins Airbus Fly Your Ideas 2019 global competition

UNESCOO Press Release No.2019-52

Pioneering student team from the Netherlands wins UNESCO - Airbus "Fly Your Ideas" global competition

 

Paris, 28 June—Team "Zero" Heroes from the Delft University of Technology, (the Netherlands) has won the top prize of 25,000 euros of the 2019 Airbus Fly Your Ideas global student competition organised by Airbus in partnership with UNESCO.  in recognition of their easy to use battery-less wireless smart switch application to replace traditional wired systems in aircarft.

Team "Zero" Heroes was chosen from among 269 projects and a subsequent shortlist of seven. The biennial competition is a celebration of creativity, designed to inspire young people to get involved in sustainable innovation and engineering.

All seven finalist teams spent the last week of the competition in Toulouse, France, prototyping their idea in Airbus' cutting-edge Innovation and R&D facilities with support from dedicated Airbus mentors and experts using state-of-the-art equipment. On June 27, the teams presented their projects to a panel of aerospace and academic experts, and to the general public through live streaming.

The jury of aerospace and academic experts from Airbus and the International Space University (Strasbourg, France) was impressed by the innovative spirit and economic understanding of the students of the "Zero" Heroes Team. Their development of wireless systems solves the main limitation of using the Internet of Things (IoT) in aircraft by removing battery integration, a current safety and regulatory challenge. Their innovation furthermore reduces fuel consumption and weight while simplifying aircraft retrofit and maintenance needs.

The runners up, Team Airfish from the University of Cambrigde (UK), also presented an exceptionally convincing project with their ocean monitoring system using a satellite and video imaging technology. Their development can help governments combat illegal fishing, reduce the bycatch of endangered species, and generally decrease damage to the marine habitat.

Airbus Fly Your Ideas is a global competition challenging students to innovate for the future of aerospace in six key areas: Electrification, Data Services, Cyber Security, Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, and Mixed Reality.

Since its launch by Airbus in 2008, and the signing of a partnership agreement with UNESCO in 2012, over 22,000 students from over 700 universities in 100 countries worldwide have registered for Fly Your Ideas.

This year's finalist teams represent 11 countries and eight different universities from Asia, Europe and South America.

The winning team received a prize of €25,000 and €10,000 were awarded to the runner-up project. An additional €10,000 was shared between the remaining finalists.

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More information:

• Fly your ideas www.airbus-fyi.com
• UNESCO – Airbus Fly your Ideas partnership http://www.unesco.org/new/en/natural-sciences/science-technology/engineering/youth-in-engineering/fly-your-ideas-with-airbus/
• High resolution photos - AirbusNewsroom

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Contacts for the media

UNESCO :
Roni Amelan, UNESCO Media Section, r.amelan@unesco.org, +33(0)145681650

 

AIRBUS :

Susanne Terzi; susanne.terzi@airbus.com,+49 (0) 40 743 69250

Dominic Sproston; press@airbus-fyi.com , +44 (0) 7969 447601

 

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