‘100 for 100’ competition winners announced

Alex Dyamond (MBBS BSc Medicine, Faculty of Medical Sciences and startup advisor for UCL Entrepreneurs Society’s Moonshot Launchpad) and Adriana Salazar (MSc Development Administration and Planning, Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment) impressed the judging panel with their pioneering ideas and were both awarded a £100 prize.

Winner #1 - Alex

Alex’s idea addressed university students’ mental health issues. He suggested that semantic analysis and a machine-learning algorithm could be used to spot key words and phrases in students’ social media feeds to identify vulnerable individuals through their words and behaviour. This data could enable a social support network to take preventative steps to help the student at an earlier stage.

“I entered this idea because it's a great example of how developments in AI (artificial intelligence) and data science could reduce the healthcare burden in neglected populations,” said Alex.

“By enabling an existing process like social support and allowing clinicians to make predictions and targeted interventions from the dataset we could meaningfully improve preventative health outcomes.”

Alex is currently investigating how to implement his platform.

Winner #2 - Adriana

Adriana developed her winning idea after a conversation with a friend about concerns around the excessive amount of plastic waste created by our daily consumption. Her idea was to incentivise retail businesses to reduce their plastic consumption by setting up a network showing consumers how much plastic the businesses use. Consumers could then choose to give their custom to businesses that have implemented practices to reduce plastic usage.

“Being an economist, it was clear to me that this issue was a matter of supply and demand and that plastic waste - which takes literally ages to decompose and has more implications to health and social vulnerability than we think - could be significantly decreased if businesses had the incentives to provide alternative solutions and if consumers consciously demanded it.”

Adriana is keen to keep working on her idea. Her long-term vision is to have a social enterprise that contributes to the alleviation of poverty and vulnerability in Mexico.

She was recently elected as a consultant at the UCL branch of 180 Degrees (a consultancy service for non-profits and social enterprises).

Bringing more brilliant ideas to life

“The 100 for 100 competition is all about encouraging students to give their ideas a go. To realise an idea you need to talk to people and test it – don’t keep it to yourself! Our winners and all the entrants deserve credit for taking the first step on this journey,” said Oli Pinch, UCL Innovation & Enterprise Entrepreneurship Programme Manager.

If you have a business idea that you’d like support with or if you’re interested in finding out more about upcoming entrepreneurial events and development opportunities, email us at entrepreneurship@ucl.ac.uk

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