NYC Students Named 2017's Young Innovators to Watch

Thirteen New York City students are being honored with the Young Innovators to Watch Awards for projects including an algorithm to measure lithium-ion battery life and a wearable device to help blind people navigate around obstacles.
 

The winners were announced on July 12 at a ceremony during CE Week, the consumer electronics industry’s official convention in New York City, which showcases the newest innovations that will affect technology and lifestyle. 

The projects in the third-annual Young Innovators to Watch competition were created by students in middle school, high school, and college, all of whom are younger than 20, according to a press release. Judges ranked the projects on their creativity, user design, use of STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and math), scalability, and civic mindedness.  

The winners were chosen by a panel of judges including educators, technology experts, and previous award recipients. The winning students receive a $1,000 scholarship provided by CE Week and the Kay Family Foundation, a gift card provided by B&H Photo, a special speaker system provided by Monster, and a MiP Robot provided by WowWee Toys.

“Students working in tech and the sciences need some positive reinforcement and there’s no better place to recognize them than at CE Week, where they can see the most exciting tech innovation and careers,” Robin Raskin, the program’s creator, said in the press release. “Being recognized at an industry technology showcase is really empowering for these winners.”

Raskin also is founder of Living in Digital Times, a company that produces technology conventions and a co-sponsor of the Young Innovators to Watch Awards.

Here is a list of the 2017 Young Innovators to Watch Award recipients: 

• Sharon Lin (18), Stuyvesant High School, for “White Water,” an app for underdeveloped communities that identifies bacteria in water based on a photo sample, which would help underdeveloped communities avoid exposure to water-borne illnesses such as malaria.
   
• Priya Mittal (17), The Dalton School, for “GroGreen, an app for restaurants and juice bars to buy imperfect produce directly from farms at a 20-percent mark down. This reduces food waste and allows farmers to sell items they would normally throw away.
   
• Deeya Patel (14), Divek Patel (12), Nitin Seshadri (13), Karan Keerthy (11), Sriram Pankanti (11), Srinath Duri (10), St. Augustine School, Somers Middle School, and Briarcliff Middle School, for “ADVISE—Assistance for Dog & Visually Impaired Subjects.” This is a wearable device using a Kinect sensor to alert the visually impaired to obstacles. The device identifies the size, location, and number of obstacles and provides feedback to the person through sound or touch, such as vibrations.
   
• Abigail Brown (18), Yousef Alsayid (17), Curtis Mason (17), Mark Ayad (16), College of Staten Island, for “MACAY Labs HiFi Mod,” a high-fidelity speaker designed to attach to a smart phone, allowing users to customize their audio experience with studio-quality sound. Users can record with compatible equipment and share their sound on the go.
   
• Michael Klamkin (16), Staten Island Technical High School, for “Dual Extended Kalman Filtering,” a new approach to monitoring the state of charge of lithium-ion polymer batteries. Using an algorithm, Kalman Filtering measures phone battery life more efficiently than the battery life monitor built into a phone currently.
   

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