National Ceremony

The Ingenious+ National Awards celebrates sixteen youth innovators, aged 14 to 18, from across Canada whose innovations best exemplifies innovating for good in the categories of: Climate Change and the Environment, Community and Civic Engagement, Equity and Inclusion, Health and Well-being, and Technology and Entrepreneurship.

Watch live on May 15, 2024 at 1pm ET.

National Winners

AI-QUA Savior: Harnessing Artificial Intelligence in Subaquatic Rescue Operations

Yurui Qin | Saskatchewan
Climate Change and the Environment

An affordable submersible autonomous diving robot equipped with machine learning algorithms, the robot can effectively scan designated areas, detect humans, and transmit precise GNSS data via text messages during search and rescue missions.

Calmos

Yasmine Ben Arous | Québec
Community and Civic Engagement

Support for students suffering from an anxiety disorder is often inadequate and ineffective, while creating an overload of work for social workers. To counter this problem and its impact, Calmos is an artificial intelligence web and mobile application synchronized to a connected object to monitor these students. The system also helps to anticipate and prevent anxiety attacks, while providing optimal support and tools to students during their time of distress.

Tech for Community

Natalie Mitchell | Newfoundland
Equity and Inclusion

Tech for Community is a youth-led organization that adapts toys for children with dexterity challenges using 3-D printers to customize the toy based on the child’s interest, utilizing different patterns, colours and layouts depend on their needs.

Portable and Individualized Air Quality Monitor for Outdoors and Wildfires

Kendra Nayanka | Ontario
Health and Well-being

An outdoor portable air quality monitor (AQM) measuring fine particulate matter,
number of particles, temperature, humidity, air pressure, and air quality index. It shows real-time data through display and audio messages to flag times when users feel uncomfortable, thus offering individualized alerts based on each user’s sensitivities and
tolerance level.

LifeHeat: The Self-Heating Survival Pack that Works in Water

Liam Pope-Lau | British Columbia
Technology and Entrepreneurship

LifeHeat is a water-activated self-heating survival pack developed to help prevent hypothermia. It generates heat when immersed in water, with no activation. LifeHeat is made of recycled materials, is refillable and can retrofit any lifejacket.

National Finalists

Smart Prosthetic Hands for Enhanced Living

Frank Chen | Newfoundland

The smart prosthetic system uses embedded sensors to monitor and track external conditions of the prosthetic hand. Smart prosthetic hands with 3D–printed backbone fingers can mimic a human hand, enhancing the lives of people with partially lost fingers.

Screening for Retinitis Pigmentosa with Smartphones

Harry Nickerson | Nova Scotia

Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP) is a rare degenerative eye condition. This innovation is an image classifier capable of using fundus photos to screen for RP using a smartphone. Currently this solution correctly classifies RP 92% of the time.

A Drone that Saves Lives

Maxim Michaud | New Brunswick

A drone that speeds up the search process for missing people. It uses artificial intelligence and a thermal camera to identify potential leads or people. It is a tool that will enable search teams to act faster and more effectively, and thus save lives.

Cultura

Unmol Sharma, Bagavan Marakathalingasivam, and Alexander Yevchenko | Ontario

A tech-based, non-invasive, community-based farming management app for small scale farmers. It can help the average family farm manage its operations using the integration of technology and agriculture. The app includes weather alerts and forecasting capabilities, crop phenology tracker, a predictor for crop growth stages and optimizing resource use, financial tracking system and the ability to analyze communal market trends, leveraging collective user data for localized insights.

Biodegradable and Treated Wood Chips as a Winter Alternative for De-Icing Road Salts

Casper Dong | Manitoba

The innovation is biodegradable chemically treated wood chips to serve as an alternative for de-icing salts, by binding 50% calcium chloride crystals to wood chips and coating the other 50% with nitrogen rich plant soil. Wood chips cover more ground area then conventional salts, last at tested temperatures of -31 degrees Celsius, and offer added grip when lodged into ice. With this innovation, residents near endangered freshwater ecosystems won’t have to rely on toxic salts to keep their driveways, roads, and sidewalks safe.

Harry Ainlay Pre-Medical Club

Aishat Azeez and Amtul Aleem | Alberta

A pre-medical organization that takes a unique approach by engaging directly with current medical students to offer mentorship and valuable insights for high school students who feel underrepresented in this field.   

Vehicle-mounted Door Opening Warning System

Shiran Sun | British Columbia

This vehicle-mounted door-opening warning system alerts both passengers inside the vehicle and approaching cyclists. The prototype was successfully tested on a vehicle, demonstrating reliable performance in preventing dooring accidents.

EV Conversion

Jackson Berry | Yukon

Prototype of a low-cost option that will enable car owners to convert their existing gas-powered vehicles to electric. This may reduce the cost of EVs considerably and help reuse existing resources, cutting down on the overall environmental toll.