How these students are using tech to tackle real-world challenges

Team Ireland showed off its tech talent at the latest Seeds for the Future programme, addressing water quality and life-threatening allergies.

Earlier this year, STEM students travelled to Rome to represent Ireland at the 2024 European Seeds for the Future programme.

The programme, run by telecoms giant Huawei, aims to cultivate young ICT talent through a week-long event that includes workshops, panel discussions and insights from industry experts and academia.

Participants explored various tech career paths, deepened their understanding of innovation, digitalisation, sustainability and entrepreneurship and honed their digital skills.

Among the 145 students from 23 European countries, Ireland’s delegation of 10 students from six universities achieved remarkable success.

Baolin Liang, public relations manager for Huawei Technologies in Ireland, said that by selecting young talent from around the world, the Seeds for the Future programme provides participants with “an important platform to understand industry innovation, experience cross-cultural exchanges, and cultivate an entrepreneurial spirit”.

Addressing allergies

Team Anaphero, comprising five Irish students, emerged as the regional champion and will advance to the Tech4Good global final in China, which will take place early next year.

Tiarnan O’Rourke from University College Dublin was the team leader. He told SiliconRepublic.com about their project, which aims to address the issue of life-threatening food allergies.

“By 2025, the European Academy for Allergy and Clinical Immunology projects that more than 50pc of all Europeans will suffer from an allergy. Our project aims to address these pressing issues with a wearable device for children with food allergies, designed to instantly alert parents, caregivers and emergency services when a child shows early signs of anaphylactic shock,” he said.

“Utilising advanced physiological sensors to detect allergic reaction symptoms, the device leverages 5G connectivity and AI models for real-time analysis and connectivity.”

The team invested countless hours researching the most efficient ways of predicting early signs of anaphylaxis and equipped their wearable device with advanced sensors to monitor key physiological indicators directly associated with allergic reactions, such as heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen levels and skin responses.

“These sensors are finely tuned to detect even the slightest deviations from normal levels, providing early warnings that an allergic reaction may be underway. To enhance the speed and accuracy of these alerts, the device utilises 5G connectivity, allowing for instant communication between the wearable and the designated caregivers, no matter where they are,” he said.

“Additionally, our AI models analyse the data in real time, learning from each individual’s unique physiological patterns to offer personalised alerts tailored to their specific needs.”

One of the biggest challenges for Team Anaphero was ensuring the technology used was both accurate and clinically approved. To overcome this, they collaborated with leading allergy organisations worldwide, including the European Federation of Allergy and Airways Diseases Patients’ Associations and Allergy Act.

“Another significant challenge was ensuring the device accurately detects anaphylactic reactions without generating false positives or negatives. Since the body’s physiological factors fluctuate with activities like exercise, eating and resting, we needed a solution to account for these variations,” he said.

“To achieve this, we introduced a two-week calibration period during which the child wears the device continuously. This allows us to measure and record baseline physiological levels across different daily activities.”

The team then used AI to collect and analyse the data points to better distinguish between ordinary fluctuations and early signs of anaphylaxis. The team is now focused on developing the product further and preparing for market launch, having been granted funded mentorship from Huawei.

“We aim to showcase our progress at the 2025 World Tech4Good finals in Shenzhen, China, scheduled for Spring 2025, where we will compete against the top student start-ups from around the world.”

Wading through water

Another Irish group, Team Upstream, secured a spot in the top 10 within the European region. Their project aims to provide residents with timely notifications about water supply quality using smart sensor technology and AI.

Chirag Joshi, an engineering student from Dublin City University, said the team aimed to take a proactive approach to solving the problem of alerting the public about contaminated water rather than the current reactive approach of a boil water notice that usually comes after contaminated water has already been consumed.

“Upstream solves this problem by not only alerting the public in real time via a mobile app, but automatically correcting the water quality at the water treatment facility using IoT and AI, preventing the problem at its roots,” said Joshi.

“We used smart sensors capable of detecting impurities and irregularities such as pH levels, conductivity, chlorine, turbidity, dissolved oxygen, UV light, ammonia nitrogen ions, green algae and heavy metals. Some of these sensors have been used for decades in the industry, while others, such as using computer vision to detect bacteria, have not yet been used globally in water treatment facilities.”

The sensors are placed at different stages in the water treatment facility. Each sensor was connected to an IoT gateway where data would be read and transmitted to a cloud service for storage. To process the data collected by the sensors, a custom AI-driven machine learning model was developed using demo data, similar to the data being collected by the sensors.

Joshi said the AI model would be not only capable of recommending corrective measures, but of controlling the machines directly, for example, increasing or decreasing the amount of chlorine added.

“The AI model would also be used to feed information to the mobile application, alerting the public instantly on the severity of the contamination.”

The biggest challenges for the Upstream project came down to integration with current infrastructure, regulatory compliance and cost. To tackle the legacy infrastructure problem, the team developed a modular system architecture which would be able to adapt to any set-up without requiring major overhauls.

To address regulatory compliances, the students engaged with Irish Environmental Network and Irish Water. “Continuous collaboration with legal experts allowed us to innovate with the product while staying ahead of the regulatory changes, setting new standards in compliance,” said Joshi.

Looking at the financial demands of the project, Joshi said the modular design gave the project the flexibility needed to keep costs down via gradual system upgrades.

“We conducted extensive research to find the sensors of the highest quality while keeping the options cost-effective. The sensors we chose ranged from €5 to €3,000 with the total cost of one implementation of Upstream in a standard treatment facility standing at €46,400. There is also a mandatory maintenance fee of €2,000 per month.”

Even though the team had less than one week to come up with their full-scale plan, Joshi said the students are excited to take it to the next phase.

“We aim to focus greatly on the refinement of the prototype, selecting the best sensors for the situation, IoT gateways and power supplies by conducting more testing and research,” he said.

“With enough preparation, our plan is to head into pilot testing. We aim to partner with local authorities and private companies to conduct field trials, gathering important data and feedback to optimise performance and functionality.”

Liang said it was inspiring to see the Irish teams display a keen eye for real-world challenges. “Their ability to leverage ICT technology, including 5G, AI and cloud, to address everyday issues demonstrates innovation and a deep understanding of the world around us. That is what technology is about,” she said.

“What’s more, Team Ireland also displayed strong commitment to sharing culture and fostering innovation. Throughout the process of developing the project, they spent time working together as teams to improve on every detail, including technology application and business model. I am so glad that their efforts pay off.”

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