Cover The James Dyson Award team with the national winners: Joseph Aristotle de Leon, Ynna Nichole Ilogon, Rodel Jr Remolana, King Zhytt Driz and Alonzo Gabriel Limocon
The James Dyson Award team with the national winners: Joseph Aristotle de Leon, Ynna Nichole Ilogon, Rodel Jr Remolana, King Zhytt Driz and Alonzo Gabriel Limocon
1 / 1
The James Dyson Award reveals five Filipino innovators who made it to this year’s international awards
The annual James Dyson Award, held by the James Dyson Foundation, introduced the finalists to the international awards. The judges selected several innovators from around the world, five of whom are Filipino engineering students—national winner Joseph Aristotle de Leon and national runners-up Ynna Nichole Ilogon, Rodel Jr Remolana, King Zhytt Driz, and Alonzo Gabriel Limocon.
With over 1,900 entries from 29 countries this year, the much-anticipated international design competition is a centre stage for young engineers to come up with creations and designs that solve a global problem or any problem that they are passionate about, whether societal or environmental.
The global winners have yet to be announced, so let’s first learn about the inventions representing the Philippines at the international awards.
More from Tatler: Eco-Warriors: Engr Mark Bantugon on his James Dyson award-winning invention and its impact on aeronautics
RAMUN: “See The Unseen”
James Dyson Award 2024 National Winner Joseph Aristotle de Leon with RAMUN
1 / 4
Created by a Manufacturing Engineering student from De La Salle University-Manila, Joseph Aristotle de Leon, the National Award Winner RAMUN (Resistivity Acquisition and Monitoring of the Underground) is an underground monitoring system that can track the events below the Earth's surface for 24 hours. It acts like a CCTV that can show real-time videos of subsurface movements such as soil liquefaction, groundwater pollution, sinkholes and landslides. One major problem that this invention can help with is flooding, especially in Metro Manila, where underground water systems aren’t maintained well.
RAMUN’s compact design allows for easy deployment in any environmental area like construction sites, open roads and parking spaces. It also provides useful data for engineers, environmentalists and decision-makers when faced with a natural disaster or even for research.
With RAMUN, people will become more aware of the underground, from mitigating hazards to exploring the resources underneath.
De Leon plans to develop the final form of RAMUN’s system so he can finally test it out and see how it can still be improved. He hopes for his win to bring him to a like-minded community that will work with him in improving RAMUN, and together, contribute to a sustainable future.
GeopolyCement
Above James Dyson Award 2024 National Runners-up Ynna Nichole Ilogon and Rodel Jr Remolana
Above GeopolyCement
James Dyson Award 2024 National Runners-up Ynna Nichole Ilogon and Rodel Jr Remolana
1 / 2
Young innovators and National Award runners-up Ynna Nichole Ilogon and Rodel Jr Remolana created GeopolyCement after seeing the growing climate crisis in the country brought by rapid urbanisation that contributes to emitting global greenhouse gases. With the high demand for infrastructure in the city, cement consumption increases, releasing more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
With that problem in sight, Ilogon and Remolana worked for months and created a low-carbon and more cost-effective substitute to traditional cement. It can also provide sufficient strength to ensure that its usage is not only safe for the environment but also for the structure itself. GeopolyCement is made from agro-industrial waste and pozzolan materials. To refine the cement, silica-alumina and alkali activator were added to the mix as well.
Ilogon and Remolana will run more experiments using other resources and materials like foaming agents to ensure that GeopolyCement can contribute to sustainability and will be ready for commercialisation.
Fire GeoPrimer
James Dyson Award 2024 National Runners-up King Zhytt Driz and Alonzo Gabriel Limocon
1 / 3
King Zhytt Driz and Alonzo Gabriel Limocon wanted to help address two problems: frequent fire-related incidents in wooden structures in the country and the harmful environmental impact of agro-industrial waste disposal. With that, Fire GeoPrimer, made of nano-silica and aluminium from agro-industrial waste and clay, was created. Fire GeoPrimer is not the usual type, as it is an intumescent flame-retardant primer coating.
It provides better fire resistance and protection for wood-based forms and structures and a surface for paint to settle onto. Since the GeoPrimer is made of sustainable and eco-friendly elements, its smell is not as toxic as that of the typical primer coat many use.
Driz and Limocon are still refining the primer formula to enhance its performance further. This opens an avenue for more researchers and innovators to create more sustainable and eco-friendly coatings using waste materials.
The global winners will be announced on November 13, 2024.
NOW READ
Filipino inventions recognised internationally in 2024 you need to know about
Carvey Maigue And The AuREUS System: All About James Dyson Award's First Sustainability Winner
Meet the designer who created a plant-based breast prosthesis for cancer survivors
Credits
Images: Courtesy of The James Dyson Award 2024
