Three successful student teams have been selected to go through to the final of the Make-A-Difference Competition 2015.

The Faculty of Natural Sciences first launched its Make-a-Difference Impact Challenge Competition in January 2014. The competition challenges teams of undergraduate students in the Faculty of Natural Sciences to apply their skills and creativity to develop an idea that would have a positive impact on Society.

On Friday 29 May, the teams taking part in this year’s competition reached the end of Stage 2, where they presented their formal project proposals to a VIP panel of judges comprising Professor Lord Robert Winston, Professor of Science and Society and Emeritus Professor of Fertility Studies, Imperial College; Professor Sir John Pendry, Chair in Theoretical Solid State Physics, Imperial College; and Dr Ruth Allan, Manager in Consulting at Deloitte MCS Ltd.

The judges selected the following three teams to go through to the final stage of the competition:

• CHaD- Ezra Kitson, Henry Lloyd-Laney, Adam Mills and Ivan Zheludev
• Hidden Gens- Stanislav Piletsky, Simon Rabinowicz, Zeyu Yang and Cristian Zagar
• The Velox Group- Lauren Dennis, Cameron Doughty and Jakub Vaith

The successful teams, will now be given access to facilities to develop their project to a proof-of-concept stage over eight weeks this summer, with each student receiving a bursary of £1,500 to cover their living costs.

The teams will submit a detailed summary of their findings at the end of the 8 weeks and the competition will culminate in an event open to staff, students and the general public, on 26 October 2015, where the teams will present their final projects to the VIP judges and an overall winner will be announced.

Professor Ramón Vilar, from the Department of Chemistry and Chair of the Competition Organising Committee said:

‘Students from across the Faculty of Natural Sciences presented novel ideas to tackle a wide range of problems. The proposals and presentations were excellent, and showed how talented and creative Imperial College students are. The three selected teams will have 8 weeks over the summer to demonstrate the proof-of-principle of their idea – I look forward to seeing the outcomes of the projects later this year!’

More information on the contest can be found on the FoNS MAD website