Celebrating Innovation and Innovators at the 2024 Create the Future Design Contest

The Create the Future Design Contest — sponsored by COMSOL, Mouser Electronics, and presented by SAE Media Group — has helped bring out the best technologies for the future throughout its 22-year run.

Much like last year, Create the Future Design Contest 2024, held on November 15 in New York City, had the finalists in each of the seven categories pitch their ideas to a team of judges, who would then choose the Grand Prize winner based on a 20-point scoring system.

The 2024 contest rewarded innovation in seven categories: aerospace & defense, automotive and transportation, electronics, manufacturing and materials, medical, robotics and automation, and sustainable technology. There were two prior rounds of judging to determine the seven finalists — one for each category.

Each finalist had 10 minutes to pitch their idea, followed by a three-minute Q&A with the judges. The top prizes in the 2024 edition — including the Grand Prize winner, NETrolyze, which took home the $25,000 prize, and the winning designs in seven categories, who all took home an HP workstation computer — were awarded at the live event.

“Given how innovative and accomplished the other finalists and their projects were, it is humbling for us simply to be considered alongside them,” said NETrolyze team member Priyan Weerrappuli. “As someone who grew up reading Tech Briefs, winning this Grand Prize feels amazing — and very much like a 'full circle' moment. The prize itself will go a long way toward supporting two pre-clinical studies we are conducting to further advance our therapeutic, NETrolyze, toward the clinic,” he added.

GRAND PRIZE WINNER: NETrolyze — A Novel Immunotherapy for Triple-Negative Breast Cancer

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a highly aggressive subtype of breast cancer that poses significant challenges in treatment. The primary problem with TNBC is the lack of effective treatments to stop cancer metastasis, the spread of malignant cancer cells from the primary tumor to distant organs. TNBC tumors exhibit high rates of metastasis and are becoming increasingly more prevalent, disproportionately affecting African American women. The current standard of care strategies, such as notoriously toxic chemotherapy, require weeks to months to demonstrate efficacy and often fail due to tumor resistance. There is currently no therapeutic option that specifically targets and prevents metastasis following the initial detection of TNBC.

A team at the University of Michigan has designed an innovative first-in-class therapeutic injectable that directly targets the metastatic process in TNBC. Their product, NETrolyze, consists of a small molecule loaded into a slow-release gel, designed to continuously fight off metastasis. It systematically targets only the cancerous tumor while preserving the integrity of the body’s overall immune system.

For more information, visit here  .

Aerospace & Defense Winner: AlchLight, Laser-Generated Anti-Icing and Anti-Fogging Transparent Materials

The windshields, windows, and covers of aircraft, cars, vehicles, and cameras must endure harsh environments. Snow and ice buildup pose significant risks in cold weather, while fogging can obscure the pilot’s or driver’s view, compromising safety. Icing and fogging on cameras also impact their operational effectiveness. To address these challenges, AlchLight has invented and pioneered a non-coating laser surface processing (LSP) technology that turns regular transparent materials such as glass and polymers superhydrophobic. The altered materials also provide superior anti-icing and anti-fogging capabilities while maintaining high transparency. Moreover, AlchLight has developed the world’s first m-nm surface multi-functionalization workstation that can process a meter-size surface area at an nm resolution on both flat and curved surfaces, which can scale and transfer LSP to the marketplace.

For more information, visit here  .

Automotive & Transportation Winner: Transensys Multi-Modal Traffic Detection System

The Transensys Multi-Modal Traffic Detection System aims to dramatically improve traffic congestion issues seen worldwide. The amount of time humans spend on roadways represents a significant portion of our daily lives; we have become so accustomed to it that we don’t even question it. A significant percentage of this time is spent waiting at traffic lights. In the US alone, around 306,000 hours are spent daily by US residents at traffic lights. Current systems to detect traffic are complex, costly, and inaccurate. The Transensys Multi-Modal Traffic Detection System is aims to provide widespread, low-cost, and accurate traffic measurement, dramatically reducing intersection wait times, thus providing huge benefits to people and the environment. The system is based on a key computer vision algorithmic innovation coupled with low-cost sensors (camera and LWIR). The software algorithm is paired with cost-effective IoT (Internet of Things) hardware components. These include both a camera and long-wavelength IR.

For more information, visit here  .

Electronics Winner: Thin-Film Thermoelectric Cooling Device

Developed by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) researchers, the wearable thin-film thermoelectric cooling (TFTEC) device is one of the world’s lightest, thinnest, and fastest refrigeration devices. In a form-factor similar to an adhesive bandage, TFTEC has a high-speed and cooling power density capable of matching the human body’s ability to rapidly sense temperature change, and thus providing intuitive thermal perceptions for those with missing limbs and prostheses. TFTEC was used in noninvasive neuro-simulation trials of several amputee and non-amputee individuals and elicited cooling sensations in the phantom limb of all participants, whereas traditional thermoelectric technology only did so in half of the participants. The successful interaction between TFTEC and the human interface demonstrates a significant step towards a reality in which advanced human-machine systems deliver complex neuro-sensory feedback for a variety of applications including prosthetics, virtual reality, pain management, and beyond.

For more information, visit here  .

Manufacturing & Materials Winner: RHOBARR™ Barrier Dispersions Platform

The innovative RHOBARR^TM line of high-performance waterborne coating products for recyclable paper-based packaging offers award-winning technologies that provide barrier against oil and grease, fatty acids and mineral oil, and hot/cold liquids, along with additional packaging properties such as heat seal, film flexibility, and block resistance. RHOBARR^TM Barrier Dispersions are applied to paper/board as an aqueous dispersion, then dried to form ultra-thin (95 percent fiber recovery rate in internal testing (Voluntary Standard for Repulpability from the Fibre Box Association (FBA)), internal cradle-to-grave life cycle analyses validating significant improvements over extrusion-coated paper, and iv) external validation of ~30 percent bio-renewable carbon content (Beta Labs according to ASTM-D6866).

For more information, visit here  .

Robotics & Automation Winner - AstroAnt: A Miniature Symbiotic Robotic Serving on the Outside Surfaces of Spacecraft, Rovers, and Landers for Inspection and Diagnostic Tasks

Future in-space operations — across low-Earth orbit (LEO), lunar missions, and out to Mars — will heavily leverage robotics to improve systems performance, reduce risk to human crews, and contribute to novel mission capabilities. Robots have long been used for remote operations such as supporting space missions. Expanding beyond large, cost-intensive robotic platforms, this novel approach from the MIT Media Lab proposes spacecraft environment monitoring, both internal and external, with small, low-cost swarm robots. The “AstroAnts” are small robots for inspection and diagnostic tasks on external spacecraft surfaces, both in orbit and on planetary surfaces. These multifunctional, autonomous, wheeled, robotic swarm units can traverse a wide range of surfaces, sense and interact with their environment, and cover extensive territory.

Each robot features a modular design with varying sensor payloads that can be tailored based on custom mission requirements. Many AstroAnt robots can form an “On-body” sensor network for a spacecraft. By doing inspection sensing from the external surface, the data collected from the robots can be used to monitor the real-time performance of the host mothership.

For more information, visit here  .

Sustainable Technology Winner: Cosmetic Silica Upcycled from Rice Husk as Natural Alternative to Microplastic Powders

The personal care market is seeking innovative cosmetic ingredients that feature high sustainability profiles, excellent optical and sensory properties, and adhere to regulatory standards. Current regulations limit the use of several cosmetic powders in cosmetic products due to their classification as microplastics, so there was a need to develop an alternative powder that could replace those cosmetic powders. EcoSmooth™ Rice Husk Cosmetic Powder is a silica from rice husk waste origin that can offer similar optical and sensorial performance than Polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) powder and Nylon-12 powder. Contrary to PMMA and Nylon-12, this material can be dispersed in the water or the oil phase of the cosmetic emulsions and therefore performs well in a wide variety of skin care (cream), color cosmetic (foundation) and hair care (dry shampoo) formulations.

For more information, visit here  .

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