October 15th, 2018 World Trade Centre: Two of Canadian University Dubai’s most talented and inventive Environmental Health students participated in the “Seeds of the Future” competition hosted by Huawei. They competed against 50 other inventors vying for worldwide recognition and were awarded funding of AED 25,000 to bring their project to life.
The event, which was held in cooperation with the Federal Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) and held under the patronage of the Ministry of Health, reached out to young minds in a bid to inspire innovation in the field of Environmental Health Management.
The competition took place over a 6 month period and among the original fifty entries from different educational institutions in the UAE, the CUD team was selected to be among the sixteen teams in the second round which was then trimmed to six teams in the third and final round.
Each of the six finalists received funding, and CUD’s own Maha Talli and Maitha Almarzooqi were one of them.
The team was supported by Dr. Yassen Alfoteih, Assistant Professor, who specializes in Environmental Biology. All hypothesis testing, technical support and portfolio were carried out at CUD science labs designed to find an effective, easy, cheap and practical product along with a phone app. to check the purity of drinking water
Maha Talli, when describing the motivation behind embarking on this competition said, “developing the App and seeing it come to life inspired me greatly because I knew that it would help save lives. Over 844 million people lack safe drinking water, a commodity we all take for granted, so this invention is my way of giving back and appreciating the little things that make all the difference.”
Water has no monetary valuation and many countries in the world facing scarcity and water stress. Moreover, declining water quality has become a global issue of concern as human populations grow, industrial and agricultural activities expand, and climate change threatens to cause major alterations to the hydrological cycle.
CUD should be proud of our students and wish them good fortune in the final leg of their journey as they use the funding to bring their invention to life and see it used in impoverished areas of Africa, South America, the Middle East, and beyond.
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