OUI and Oxford University’s Innovation & Business Partnerships team are delighted to announce that the winner of the Oxford ClimateTech and Sustainability Challenge is:
Alexander Frederick Shenkin from the School of Geography and the Environment for his pitch about a newly discovered climate service provided by forests. Alexander’s work has the potential to significantly increase our understanding of the climate-cooling impact of forests opening up new options for creating, managing and maintaining forests in the future.
There were also six fantastic runners-up, including five from MPLS Division:
Christian Peters, from the Department of Engineering Science, who also received the EPSRC IAA merit award. Christian’s entry concerned selective recovery of precious metals from waste water as a sustainable mining method that also creates clean drinking water.
Elena Draghici-Vasilescu from the Faculty of History - Lessons from ancient Greece and the Byzantines on how to protect and manage the environment.
Sergio Gonzalez-Cortes from the Department of Chemistry - Full catalytic conversion of waste material with water into hydrogen and captured carbon dioxide.
Antti Aitio from the Department of Engineering Science - Intelligent scalable technique for the diagnosis and prognosis of battery state of health in energy storage systems.
Jonathan Blundy from the Department of Earth Sciences - Sustainable recovery of non-ferrous metals from hypersaline liquid deposits created by volcanoes.
Jake Yang from the Department of Chemistry - High-throughput electrochemical sensor for continuous global monitoring of phytoplankton to better understand ocean health.
Judges included:
- Professor Patrick Grant – Pro Vice Chancellor for Research
- Dr Michael Obersteiner – Director of the Environmental Change Institute
- Professor Kylie Vincent - Academic Champion for Women in Entrepreneurship
- Professor Benito Mueller - Convener International Climate Policy Research
- Dr Andy Gilchrist - Innovation and Business Partnerships, Energy
- Dr Jane Jin – OUI, Cleantech Lead
Thanks to all the fantastic finalists and judges, and another big thank you to all the collaborators and supporters who created videos for the challenge!