Imperial entrepreneurs make final of Mayor of London's green tech competition

Yoo-Go pitching at the final in City Hall

The Mayor of London's Low Carbon Entrepreneurial Challenge seeks to find low carbon solutions to some of the city's greatest problems.

Imperial student start-up Yoo-Go was one of ten green innovations to make the final of this year’s competition.

Entrants were asked to come up with creative solutions to the environmental and social challenges London faces – and more than 300 entries from 37 institutions were whittled down to the final shortlist, with nearly 599 students involved.

Yoo-Go, the brainchild of Wen Han Yap, Hann Yee Son and Cindy Xin Yong Sim (Mechanical Engineering) is an online service to help people with mobility issues navigate around London. Bringing together navigation, accessibility information and live updates on pedestrian obstructions.

Currently accessibility information is fragmented, spread over different websites and documents. Yoo-Go offers a dedicated, unified service offering a variety of accessibility-focused navigation information in one place.

Wen Han Yap said: “Our aim is to help people with mobility needs navigate London more easily. Over 96% of underground tube journeys are inaccessible to commuters that require full step-free access, and bus journeys take significantly longer. In addition, obstacles at street level have a profound impact on mobility impaired commuters, as well as those with prams and luggage.” 

London's Innovators

The 10 shortlisted entries – representing seven London universities – spent the day pitching their ideas to the expert judges. They then faced the pressure of answering questions about all aspects of their ideas from the panel, which included perfumer and entrepreneur Jo Malone, Citi’s Chairman of Energy Banking, Niels Kirk, and founder of previous winner Bio-bean, Arthur Kay.

Finalists and judges at this year's competition

The Imperial team was pipped to the post by Alborz Bozorgi and Ellenor McIntosh – creators of the winning entry Twipes.

Twipes are eco-friendly, antibacterial toilet wipes which are dispensed from a roll similar to toilet paper, are free from harsh chemicals and – crucially – disintegrate in water in just three hours.

2016 Winners - Aeropowder

Previous Imperial finalists include Blocks in 2014 and Aeropowder, who were crowned champions at last year’s competition.

Other finalists included Amadou Mushroom Skin which uses mushroom skin, a suede-like fabric, as a substitute for leather; Motus Innovations, who are also competing in this year’s Althea Imperial Programme, with their stroke rehabilitation device, and Stripped Packaging-Free Pasta, who have developed a bio-membrane food packaging to reduce the need for plastic packets on dried pasta.

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said: “As London’s population grows the pressure on our infrastructure increases with it. Alborz and Ellenor are to be commended for tackling this challenge head on and they should be very proud of what they have achieved.

“I’m hugely impressed by the quality of entries. It’s testament to the creativity and talent in London’s world-leading universities that such a range of innovative solutions have been developed to make our city a better place for future generations.”