James Dyson Award 2021 Malaysia national winner is the amazing WaterPod that makes seawater drinkable
The anticipated James Dyson Award 2021 awards have netted an impressive array of innovative entries this time around with a stunning 121 entries from 25 universities for Malaysia alone.
Originally conceived in 2007, the James Dyson Awards are an annual competition in 28 countries that sees engineering or design students from all over the world leveraging their talents to create solutions to solve the most pressing problems facing the planet today both major and mundane in nature from global warming and pollution all the way to more efficient ways of managing waste or even simply living better.
For 2021, the James Dyson Award added Poland and its rich array of educational institutions to its list of participating countries that currently include Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, the U.K, the USA and of course, Malaysia.
Every participating country will have two national runners up and a national winner. These national winners will advance to the international stage of the competition where Sir James Dyson himself will preside, judge and announce the winner which will take place this coming October 2021. You can check out the official JDA 2021 page here.
For the James Dyson Award in 2020, Malaysia’s national winner was the KUNO, a cooler fridge that does not require power to keep the contents within cool by relying on the principle of evaporative cooling by an intrepid duo from the Asia Pacific Institute of Information Technology.
The year before that, the innovative Eat.Easy took the literal cake as a unique solution for effective eating for people with disabilities in JDA 2019. You can check out our prior feature on the James Dyson Award 2020 winners here.and the James Dyson Award 2019 winners here.
Entries for the James Dyson Award 2021 are no less innovative and make for solid entries indeed. Here’s the winners of JDA 2021
WaterPod – James Dyson Award 2021 Malaysia National Winner
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The national winner this year for Malaysia is the WaterPod sustainable desalination pod, a triangular looking, cost-effective water desalination pod that uses solar power to convert seawater into potable drinking water while floating on the waves.
On paper, the WaterPod looks elegantly effective with a long salt-rejecting wick that trails like a jellyfish in the water with seawater wicking up into a swath of black fabric stretched across an aluminium plate with the whole affair placed under a transparent dome. This causes seawater in the chamber to evaporate, leaving contaminants behind while creating clean water via condensation which drips into a collection chamber for usage.
The WaterPod itself looks like an innovative way to offer underprivileged communities and those living near ocean bodies to gain access to a means of potable drinking water.
Invented by a trio of students, the WaterPod is the brainchild of Bennie Beh Hue May, Yap Chun Yoon, Loo Xin Yang from the Asia Pacific Institute of Information Technology. The team, in a meet-and-greet event plans to conduct further research and development and to explore options for manufacturing the WaterPod with a working prototype on the cards to put their idea to the test.
“While the world has advanced greatly in technology, we were struck by how many people in the world still lack access to something as basic as clean drinking water. We thought we’d begin tackling that problem in Malaysia, which is home to about a quarter of a million Bajau people. We’re excited for what WaterPod can do to improve their lives, and we look forward to translating the vision of clean water for all into a reality,” says Bennie Beh, one of the co-inventors of the WaterPod.
No Residue Bottle – James Dyson Award 2021 Malaysia Runners Up
Elegantly simple yet effective, the No Residue bottle is a means by which manufacturers are able to offer usage of every single drop in a bottle. Traditional designs in current service typically have limitations that leave a good remainder of liquid stuck in the bottle on the inner sides or in the base that go to waste when a bottle is thrown away.
The No Residue Bottle by Huang Yu Tian from the Limkokwing University of Creative Technology redesigns the pump mechanism via the use of a glass ball valve and a rubber pad that scraps the content out of the sides of a bottle for extrusion. Over time this can result in millions of litres of saved liquids be it dishwashing detergent, facial cleanser or whatnot.
Citra, The Bio Leather – James Dyson Award 2021 Malaysia Runners Up
Malaysians use up a huge amount of calamansi limes and after the juice has been extracted from these small marble sized limes, they’re usually discarded.
The Citra Bio Leather by Ng Menlin from Universiti Sains Malaysia acts as a sustainable alternative by harvesting these discarded citrus peels and turns them into a bio leather by using organic binders and beeswax to strengthen its durability to create a resilient, sustainable and durable material for use in a variety of products.
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