Samsung Solve for Tomorrow 2022 Reaches Successful Conclusion

HONG KONG SAR –
Media OutReach – 12 March 2023 – The world’s leading technology company, Samsung Electronics HK Co. Ltd., today announced the 20 winning teams from the annual “Solve for Tomorrow – Innovate for a Better Hong Kong” competition. Although the competition occurred during the fifth wave of the pandemic, a record number of students participated in this year’s competition. More than 2,000 primary and secondary school students from more than 400 schools showcased their creative talent. With the ease and the relaxation of social distancing measures, all awards were given away at a prestigious physical presentation ceremony. All 20 winning teams shared cash prizes and products worth over HK$270,000.

Solve for Tomorrow 2022 was hosted by Samsung and co-organized by the Association of IT Leaders in Education (AiTLE) and Hong Kong Education City. The presentation ceremony unveiled the primary and secondary school champions and the first and second runner-ups for each category, while giving out merits and awards for creative ideas.

“This year, we have added many new elements to the competition. Samsung has proposed an ‘Everyday Sustainability’ strategy, and we are committed to promoting sustainable living in all operations and businesses. The new Galaxy S23 series smartphones are designed with environmental protection in mind, as we use multiple recycled materials, 100% recycled paper packaging, and passed the UL ECOLOGO® certification to minimize the environmental footprint of the production process. Therefore, we hope that all students will be able to understand the importance of sustainable development, so we deliberately added elements of sustainable development to the judging criteria of this year’s competition. They include finding out whether the business model uses environmentally friendly materials and whether the design concepts could operate sustainably and expand to a wider level,” said Yiyin Zhao, managing director of Samsung Electronics Hong Kong.

This year, Samsung invested more resources in cultivating students’ STREAM knowledge. A series of STREAM workshops covered design thinking, modular design, programming, collaboration and presentation skills, video shooting, etc. These aimed to help student participants to broaden their knowledge and skills.

“The students were very enthusiastic about the workshop. It is gratifying to see that the students have tried their best to design various innovative solutions with their technical knowledge and creativity that will improve the lives of Hong Kong residents,” Ms Zhao added.

Ying Wa Primary School and St. Stephen’s Girls’ College emerge winners

The Samsung Solve for Tomorrow 2022 Competition features three phases: Initial Selection, Mentoring Period and Presentation Day. The intense competition saw the judges go through hundreds of entries before choosing 8 teams from the primary and secondary schools as finalists. A mentor group of renowned entrepreneurs and Samsung employees helped to improve the entries and presentation during the Mentoring Period. On Presentation Day, each team presented the improved solutions to the judges. Ying Wa Primary School and St. Stephen’s Girls’ Secondary School won the primary and secondary school categories, respectively.

The Ying Wa Primary School team created the “Enkindle” to help students relieve stress. Enkindle consists of multiple parts. The mobile app analyzes the user’s emotions with the device camera and the Personal Image Classifier (PIC), trained to recognize facial expressions. The app categorizes the users’ emotions as happy, worrying or peaceful. Enkindle’s artificial intelligence emotional chatbot, which uses the extended function of ScSpeechRecognizer, analyzes user conversations. It works with Micro-bit to control the opening and closing of an artificial flower, guiding users in breathing exercises to relax. It also plays alpha-wave stress-relieving music and aromatherapy sprays to calm emotions.

The St. Stephen’s Girls’ School team developed a “Reusable Package Box”(智盒惜), which can help courier companies and online stores wrap and deliver goods while reducing the environmental impact. The “Reusable Package Box”, designed for reuse many times, includes an inflatable layer inside the box for protection. It takes 28 seconds to inflate the layer, which is faster than the conventional 82 seconds. There is a transparent plastic bag outside the box for storing the recipient’s information that can be conveniently and quickly removed to protect privacy.

The interior and exterior of the “Reusable Package Box” is coated with a nano-needle antibacterial layer. The coating price is affordable, and the coating is highly viscous, thus you can use water for easy cleaning You can fold the “Reusable Package Box ” for easy storage. Recipients can also return the boxes to a collection box and scan a barcode to collect the deposit. The collection box can be connected to the cloud to inform the courier company or online store to collect the boxes promptly.

“Adhering to our purpose of ‘Together for Tomorrow. Enabling People’, the new elements added this year strengthen students’ STREAM knowledge and 4C skills (Creativity, Critical thinking, Collaboration, and Communication). We hope that all the students will continue to develop their strengths and creativity and become leaders of tomorrow. I sincerely congratulate the winning teams and hope they can improve and develop their creative projects to bring positive societal change and innovate for a better Hong Kong,” added Zhao.

Winning list (Please refer to the appendix for details of the entries):