Winning Ideas could Revolutionise the Construction Industry - 2019 COINS Grand Challenge
Ideas which could revolutionise the Construction Industry were received from all over the world for the 2019 COINS Grand Challenge, a global competition which hopes to uncover innovators, entrepreneurs and leaders whose ideas could improve the built environment.
After two days of intensive interviews, filming and presentations the 12 judges, leading experts from the Construction Industry, finally selected the winners:
The winner of the Undergraduate Competition is Chathurangi Edussuriya, a student at the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. Chathurangi’s soil-testing innovation, which can be used on site, with the results fed into a smartphone, was also awarded the $150,000 COINS Investment Prize, which goes to the entry that the judges consider to be the most promising business idea.
She comments: "I think my idea could revolutionize the construction industry because usually soil tests are performed in laboratories, but with my method they can be performed at the construction site. The ‘Soil Analyzer’ could save both money and time for the construction companies. The COINS Investment Prize will help me to develop my idea further as it’s currently based on research.This has been the best experience of my life!"
The winner of the Open Competition is UK based Michael Evans whose climate-saving CO2LOC technology aims to reduce the embedded carbon in construction projects. Michael, the CEO of Cambridge Carbon Capture Ltd, UK, explains:
We're developing a technology that can capture CO2and convert it into materials that can be used in the construction sector. Winning this award has been really fantastic for us as we're at a stage in the development of our technology where we really need to get exposure to the construction sector, so that they can adopt some of the materials we're using and take some risks in trying something new. Our CO2 lock technology can capture CO2in the form of magnesium carbonate, this can be used as a filler in construction materials as a direct replacement for gypsum. And the beauty of that is that we're capturing the CO2 so that it that doesn't go into the atmosphere, but we're also creating carbon negative building materials which are displacing other more carbon intensive materials. So overall, we're making construction industry a lot cleaner!
The winner of the COINS Software Innovation Prize is Felix Chu, a student at The University of Edinburgh. Felix aims to combine intelligent technologies to increase the efficiency of the architecture industry.
Undergraduate Competition runners up are Kaushal Shetty (pictured below) & Madhav Datt with ‘The Box’, a sustainable emergency shelter for people displaced due to natural disasters or violence. They are both studying at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur.
Ali Khaloo is the runner up for the Open Competition with his idea for bringing ‘Digital Twin Technology and Artificial Intelligence to the Asset Management Community’. Ali is the CEO and Founder of Aren, USA.
The winners were drawn from 12 finalists who hailed from all over the world.
COINS would like to thank the Grand Challenge judges for sharing their time and expertise:
Linda Smart, Chief Information Office, Southland Industries
Neil Pike, Head of Business Improvement, Overbury PLC
Charles Lovatt Senior Teaching Fellow in Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Creativity at St Andrews University
Damon Schünmann, Associate Editor, Construction News
Oliver Novakovic, Technical & Innovation Director of Barratt Developments Plc,
P Michael Pelken, Innovation Director – Research & Development, Keltbray Group.
Jon Murrell, Managing Director, CSaccelerate
Ardalan Khosrowpour, Co-Founder & CEO, OnSiteIQ
Kevin Lasitz, Partner Development Manager, ISV Microsoft
Katie Tamblin, Head of Product, Achilles
Michael Pearson, President, DSA Technologies
William George, CFO of Comfort Systems USA
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