Australian inventors on MIT's top 10 'Innovators Under 35' list

Two Australian inventors are on MIT Technology Review’s top young innovators list.

EmTech Asia conference, in association with MIT Technology Review, receives applications from talented researchers, inventors and entrepreneurs from Southeast Asia, Taiwan, Australia and New Zealand for the 10 top young innovators under the age of 35 list.

The two top innovators from Australia are:

1. Madhu Bhaskaran, Senior Lecturer and Co-Leader, Functional Materials and Microsystems Research Group, RMIT University, Australia. She is recognised for her work in developing transparent, wearable sensor patches that can detect UV radiation poisoning and toxic gases like nitrogen dioxide.
2. Majid Ebrahimi Warkiani, Lecturer, School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, University of New South Wales, Australia. He was recognised for his work in the development of advanced microfluidics systems for separation of rare cells, eg, circulating tumour cells from blood for early cancer diagnosis.
   
   Emtech Asia received nominations from eight countries (Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Australia and New Zealand) to be considered for the 2016 list. Despite the array of worthy applications from across the region, seven exceptional researchers and an inventor based in Singapore, along with the two researchers from Australia (above), were selected. Other inventors are:
    
3. Javier Gomez Fernandez, Assistant Professor and Founder Academic Member, Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore. He is noted for developing Shrilk, a bioinspired material based on the chemistry and molecular design of the insect cuticle with a strength equivalent to aluminium alloys at half the density. It is made of silk proteins and waste material from the fishing industry and is considered a material that could change the world, paving the way for sustainable manufacturing.
4. Siau Chen Chian, Assistant Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore. He received the award for his research on earthquake engineering, particularly in catastrophe modelling and lifeline infrastructure damage mitigation.
5. Grace Leslie, Postdoctoral Fellow, Singapore University of Technology and Design/MIT Media Lab, Singapore. Grace was nominated for her work developing music neurofeedback systems for creative and therapeutic applications.
6. Yue Wan, GIS Fellow, Genome Institute of Singapore, Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore. She is recognised for a novel technology that allows the mapping of the shapes of RNA molecules at high speed.
7. Raye Chen-Hua Yeow, Assistant Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore. He is recognised for his work in soft wearable robotics, particularly for enhancing healthcare quality and productivity.
8. Jia Hao Cheong, Scientist, Institute of Microelectronics, Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) Singapore. Jia Hao has developed an inductively powered, implantable, blood flow sensor microsystem for real-time monitoring of vascular grafts. This can aid in the early detection of graft failure so as to enable timely intervention.
9. Joseph Fitzsimons, Assistant Professor, Singapore University of Technology and Design & Research Assistant Professor, Centre for Quantum Technologies, National University of Singapore, Singapore. Joseph researches the use of quantum mechanics to enhance the security of networked computation.
10. Pulkit Jaiswal, founder and CEO, SwarmX, Singapore. Pulkit is recognised for his work in the field of unmanned aerial vehicles or drones. The company he founded aims to build fully autonomous drone systems.

The 10 honourees will give elevator pitches about their work at EmTech Asia, which will be held 26–27 January 2016 in Singapore. These pitches typically result in further publicity for their work, along with investment opportunities, as those that attend EmTech represent a wide cross-section of the business, research and technology communities.

The 10 also automatically qualify for consideration on the global MIT Technology Review magazine ‘35 Innovators Under 35 List’ (TR35). MIT Technology Review will showcase these 35 innovators in the September/October 2016 issue.