Potential Finalists

1. Alexandre Joyce, PhD Candidate

Area of Study: Design, Management and Sustainability
Email: alexandre.joyce@gmail.com
Idea: Have you ever wondered what it would take to make the world a better place? I
think it starts by designing better businesses. We all know that businesses are the most
powerful force on the planet. They provide the food we eat. They provide the materials
and the labour to make our homes. Businesses even offer you money to do what you love.
But here's the problem. Some businesses heavily contribute to global warming, others
over-exploit natural resources and many businesses increase inequality. Today, most
businesses think that to survive they need to insure profits. That might be true, but they
shouldn't be able to profit from not caring about people and the planet. So here's my
solution. Designing sustainability into their business model. For my PhD, I have
developed a simple tool, inspired by the original business model canvas, that can guide
businesses and organizations to be coherent in the way they care for people, planet and
profits all at the same time.
2. Ali Heidari and Dave Lapointe
Area of study: Mechanical Engineering
Emails: Ali: aliheidari37@gmail.com and Dave: dave.lapointe@gmail.com
Idea: Insects as a Solution for Severe ProteinEnergy Malnutrition in Developing
Countries
Severe protein deficiency, also known as kwashiorkor, is currently a major health
problem in developing countries and is the cause of 6 million deaths per year, mostly in
children [1]. We propose that insects should be massproduced as a source of protein in
such countries in order to solve the problem of proteinenergy malnutrition. Insects are
higher in protein per weight compared to conventional sources of protein such as meat,
dairy, or beans [2]. Moreover, insects are much more efficient at converting feed into
usable protein, require less space, and reproduce more quickly than traditional proteinsource animals [3]. The practice of eating insects as food, known as entomophagy, is
common in 80% of countries around the world [4]. However, at the present, insects are
only harvested from the wild and eaten as a seasonal delicacy [5]. Our goal is to develop
production techniques that can be implemented locally in order tofarm insects for human
consumption on an industrial scale with the aim of providing an economic and
sustainable solution to proteinenergy malnutrition.
3. Dilan B. Jaunky
Area of study: Bsc. Specialization in Cell and Molecular Biology
Email: dilou_26@hotmail.com

Idea: Pandoras SynBio Box

This is the era where humans have made a prominent footprint in various fields of
science. Weve been able to use that knowledge to better understand the world we
live in and how we can better it. Since the discovery of the DNA structure and its
composites, scientist all over the globe have been fascinated with the workings of
the genetic code and what it holds for us in terms of scientific advancements. Over
the past decade or so, there has been a topic of growing interest in the science community
and that is Synthetic biology. This is the new frontier humankind faces and it is with great
concern that we must address the responsibilities that come with such knowledge. In this
presentation I will address the amplitude of Pandoras SynBio box and how raising
awareness can gear us with the wisdom to guide such knowledge for a greater purpose.
4. El-Mehdi Beghdadi
Area of study: Software Engineering
Email: elmehdi88@gmail.com
Idea: My idea highlights and demonstrates the economic and health benefits of using
smart watches to help caregivers of patients with dementia. Wandering is a real issue for
people suffering with dementia and induces a lot of stress on the people caring for them.
With the arrival of smart watches on the market, specific application can run on these
powerful devices to specifically tackle and offer new solutions for wandering. This
project explores the use of such an application running on the watch the person with
dementia would wear combined to a website accessible to caregivers. The caregiver could
then have access to the location of the watch wearer, set safe zones on a map and get text
notifications when the watch gets out of that zone.
Since the watch acts as a phone, picture message messages can be sent to it from the
website to act as activity reminders because people with dementia understand better when
seeing visual cues.
5. Kiara Gabrielle Licursi
Area of study: Exercise Science
Email: kiara.licursi@gmail.com
Idea: The impactful force of change that I foresee in the future, is something that might
already be impacting us in the present, and may have been amongst us in the past. But is,
to our knowledge, only a possibility to be created in our prospective future. The entity
being described is commonly known as the Time Machine. The theory of time travel
has fluctuated through centuries as historic, humanitarian, and scientific advancements
continue to occur. The presentation will go into more detail with focus on an introduction
to Theoretical Physics, the field pertaining to the elements required for time travel. The
distinction between speculation and the actual scientific steps that have been taken
towards this phenomenon will be made, with an emphasis and support on teleportation. It
will also demonstrate how the art of time travel originated and transcended time
throughout history as both artists and scientists, inevitably gapping a bridge between the
fields that have long been at dispute, have been harboring this very idea in their minds.