JAIN Dhruv Manoj (On behalf of Algreen Team), 2021 Gold Award
Project Title: Algreen: Accessible Green Energy via Algae Innovation

"At HKUST, you are surrounded by brilliant students from various academic and ethnic backgrounds who are equally determined to make an impact with amazing ideas and research. The President’s Cup, being the signature event for UG tech innovation, serves as an ideal opportunity for us students to engage in a rigorous but enriching competition of innovativeness, importance and originality. The Cup expects you to venture well beyond research and lab work to social impact and global relevance emphasizing HKUST’s focus on cutting-edge research that can help society progress.

As a budding changemaker, HKUST’s dynamic research environment and nourishing support system have given me a chance to try to make our idea into a reality. Our journey has been challenging but extremely rewarding as we had to conquer various battles from ideation to presentation. The President’s Cup has gifted us with several valuable skills and memorable experiences that would unquestionably help me and Algreen accelerate ahead!"

BHATT Umakant Datt (On behalf of Mynah Team), 2021 Gold Award
Project Title: Mynah: An Assistive Tool for the Speech Impaired

"The President’s Cup 2021 has proven to be an invaluable experience for all of us. From coming up with an innovative idea to producing a product over the short span of few months, especially while pandemic was still in effect, has proven to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. This journey has been challenging, and difficult but mostly fun. 

Starting with just a rough idea on what we wish to accomplish, we slowly began our journey to build a system that could help people who face difficulty in expressing themselves. Initially, the process was tiring but rewarding as we explored various previous works on similar or related topics. The more we explored the more we learned, however ironically, we started questioning ourselves more on the feasibility of our idea. This lead us to have a more thorough exploration of our idea, and finally lead to the development of “Mynah”, which we are very proud of. 

For us, what we learned in classes were ideas, but what we did in the President’s Cup was to turn those suppressed ideas into reality. With continuous support from our supervisor and friends, we were able to come one step closer to realising our ideas and helping the society. If you love exploring new ideas and wish to showcase your innovative ideas, we encourage you to participate as well."

LAMISA Mashiat, 2021 Silver Award
Project Title: Designing an Integrated Cloud Based System for Controlling and Monitoring Autonomous IoT Device

"Participating in the President’s Cup has been in my bucket list ever since my first year in HKUST. As excited as I was to participate in it, the challenges that accompanied working remotely due to the pandemic, our amazing team spirit, our professor’s constant support, and just envisioning the impact of the project made it even more exciting.

Solving a real user need requires a lot of design thinking, empathising with the user, and of course technical knowledge. Participating in the President’s Cup made me understand this from a closer point of view and helped me grow as both a designer and engineer.

From ageing solutions, to wastewater treatments, we want our solution to help many impactful projects over time – echoing with the spirit of President’s Cup 2021 and all of its winning awardees who are making ripples in solving real-world problems with technology."

ALVINA Maria Joscelind, CHEN Man Yan, CHENG Wing Tung and HADI Kristhalia, 2021 Silver Award
Project Title: Towards the Continuous Manufacture of Personalized Lipsticks

"Competing in the President's Cup was not an easy task, but it was definitely worth every step of the way. Not only did it give us the chance to share and think deeper about our project, but we also got to learn about other groups innovative ideas that came from different majors. 

When working on the project we sometimes got lost in the process. The competition challenged us to take a moment to think about our innovation, purpose, and what impact our project could have in the society. Overall, it has been an enriching experience and we are grateful that the committee made this opportunity possible during the pandemic. 

To everyone’s reading this, if you have an innovative idea (even when you are still not sure about it) and a chance to join President’s Cup, believe in your potentials and give this competition a try!"

TSANG Gin Yui, 2021 Special Mention
Project Title: Long Term Investing with Dynamic Hedging Using a combination of Stocks and Options

"It has been a fantastic experience participating in the President's Cup 2021 Competition. I would like to take this opportunity to express my greatest gratitude towards all the professors and staff members that contributed to making this event possible. I was pretty hesitant to join the President's Cup because my research topic was relatively niche and abstract. Unlike most projects that investigated some hardware solutions, my study was pure analytical. However, the inclusiveness and wholesomeness of the judging panel were beyond my expectation. I still cannot believe that my niche project can be selected as the Special Mention. 

Therefore, to the future candidates, if you have devoted genuine effort to your research, the President's Cup is perfect for sharing your ideas and getting constructive feedback. GIVE IT A TRY!"