In a remarkable display of creativity and compassion, student social entrepreneurs from around the world have been selected as the winners of U21’s RISE (Real Impact on Society and Environment) 2023 Showcase.
The showcase highlights student-led social entrepreneurship projects that aim to make a real difference in the world around us and leave a positive mark on society.
In doing so, students are introduced to a global network of supporters who have pledged their time and experience to help the young social entrepreneurs grow their ideas into something which will create real international impact.
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The winners also receive seed funding from U21 to help take their social enterprises to the next level.
The winners for 2023 have now been announced:
Most Innovative -Nepri
Started by Erik Karlsson, Edith Hammer, and Pelle Ohlsson of Lund University, Sweden, Nepri provides early diagnostics on plant diseases that can cause devastating crop failures, with the potential to support farmers worldwide develop sustainable and high-yielding agriculture. The challenges associated with feeding a growing population have led to increasing use of heavy chemical pesticides that cause environmental and health damage, yet 20 – 40% of all yields are still lost to plant disease, a situation that costs the world up to 220 billion USD per year. Manual crop inspections are ineffective and rely on visible symptoms, yet Nepri can identify disease-causing soil microbes with a ‘lab on a chip’ installation paired with automated image recognition software to identify areas of decay. This astounding application of technology has the potential to be revolutionary for global crop health and food security. Of winning the RISE Award for Most Innovative, Erik Karlsson said: “Winning the Most Innovative project for the U21 RISE Awards is fantastic news and energizes us to keep up the good work in our journey ahead. Our upcoming focus lies on technological development for improving chip performance, and in the long-run help agriculture become more sustainable and efficient worldwide."
Most Potential – WISE Cities
Marie Brodsky and Katherine-Aria Close from the University of Maryland,United States, have created an accessible technology platform to help combat social isolation in elderly people. By connecting individuals to groups and resources local to them and removing technological barriers, the project hopes to combat the problem of social isolation. Their unique approach, which is multi-lingual and able to interact with voice assistance software and across different devices, has already been accepted by several national networks of organisations dedicated to tackling the issue.
Most Impact – Celal-Mex
Celal-Mex is a biotechnology company developing environmentally-sustainable alternative products for the agricultural and industrial sectors, using a surprising source – organic pineapple waste. Oscar Martínez, Adolfo Vidal, and Eduardo Mendez from Mexico’s Tecnológico de Monterrey are the bright young minds behind the business. More than 150,000 tons of waste from growing pineapples is created in just one year, which is costly and harmful to dispose of. By turning these by-products into compounds and materials like cellulose and starch which have other applications, Celal-Mex can support many other industries with their innovative offering. Packaging and auto parts are just two of the many applications for these recovered raw materials. Of their plans, Eduardo said: “The next steps for Celal-Mex are to continue looking for capital to build the industrial plant and bring this environmental and social impact to all of Mexico, then we will start with new sources of raw materials such as agave, banana, and papaya residues, to finally start testing the world markets and introduce these raw materials in more industries. We are grateful for the opportunity with this first capital and we will continue working to make all of this a reality.”
Most Collaborative - LEAN Social
Ky Nam Nguyen, Fanyin Yang and Zi Hao Lam from the University of Hong Kong founded LEAN Social as a virtual work and study space that helps Gen Z students feel more productive and less lonely. Their study-streaming ecosystem is structured around practical incentives that support students with self-directed learning. Time spent on the site converts to tokens which can be exchanged for gift vouchers or educational experiences. Of winning their RISE Award, Ky Nam Nguyen comments: "It's such an honour to be recognized with the RISE award after over a year of hard work. In our journey, we have built a software platform and a community of thousands of youth who love our methods to stay productive. In the coming time, we will focus on improving user experience to better serve our youth audience needs and hopefully improved upon what we have learned so much on this journey."
U21 Provost Award – Ethan Waisberg
Preventable blindness is the cause being taken on by Ethan Waisberg of University College Dublin with his project ‘Preventing Blindness with Space Medicine Technology’. Around the world, one billion people already live with preventable visual impairment. With aging populations globally, novel methods of vision screening are increasingly needed, especially in developing countries that lack easy access to ophthalmic care. Building on previous NASA-funded work assessing astronaut’s vision in space, Ethan’s project uses low-cost Virtual Reality headsets combined with artificial intelligence to provide new possibilities for vision tests. On receiving the Provost’s Award, Ethan commented: “This prize will help cover my costs to travel to East Africa to test this vision assessment technology in a rural community eye care centre. This technology provides new possibilities for eye screening in underserved communities, and I am excited to take this next big step thanks to your award”
With innovative solutions and unwavering dedication, these young minds are driving positive change and proving that age is no barrier to making a difference. U21 wishes all our RISE winners and programme participants the very best of luck with their future development.
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