A Barnet student has received a technology award for smart food storage design

Queen Elizabeth student receives food storage design award

A Year 11 student from Barnet has won a top prize in The Big Bang Competition for his clever food storage idea.

Akhilesh Karthikeyan, a year 11 student at Queen Elizabeth’s School in Barnet, conducted interviews with environmental health officers from his local authority as well as a local trader before embarking on his project.

He explained: “The product encourages customers in retail environments to buy food close to expiry to reduce the amount thrown away and wasted due to expiry. The container stores perishable products and then constantly monitors the temperature to adjust a prediction for when the products will expire and encouraging customers to buy and consume to reduce the amount of food wasted.”

The award is part of The Big Bang Competition, a nationwide competition for young engineers, scientists and technologists. The technology stream was introduced to the Competition this year, supported by Siemens.

The judges said Akhilesh should be very proud of his project and face some of the challenges he encountered head on.

The Big Bang Intermediate Technology Award, supported by Siemens, was presented to Akhilesh by conservationist and TV presenter Megan McCubbin.

Mark Wood, Social Sustainability Lead, UK & Ireland at Siemens, commented: “The Big Bang is a great competition to inspire creative ideas on real-life problems. This reflects what we do every day as a business. Inspiring the next generation of technologists is vital to our economy, our business and to solving the challenges we face around the world every day and into the future. Well done to this year’s winners.”

The winners of The Competition, which recognizes and rewards talented young innovators, were announced at The Big Bang Fair, the UK’s largest celebration of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) for young people, held at the NEC in Birmingham between June 19 and June 21. . Run by EngineeringUK, the Fair is supported by organizations across the education and STEM sectors, including Rolls-Royce, Jaguar Land Rover and new supporters Accenture, Zoolab, JCB, Johnson & Johnson and easyJet.

Dr Hilary Leevers, Chief Executive of EngineeringUK said: “Huge congratulations on a well-designed project that has great potential for the future! Well done!”

To find out more and discover all the winners of The Big Bang Competition 2024 visit: www.thebigbang.org.uk/competition-winners

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