Announcing the 2023 Future Thinkers Challenge Winners

Congratulations to the brilliant young minds who conquered the 2023 Future Thinkers Challenge!

Future Thinkers is a future-focused design thinking challenge available to students in Year 5, Year 6 and 9 living in South Australia or New South Wales.

The 2023 challenge enabled students to develop vital future skills, while solving real world sustainability issues facing Australia’s wildlife and ecoregions with the help of using immersive technology. Students used virtual reality experience, EcoRangers, developed by Lumination to explore the abundant ecoregions of Australia and gain a deeper understanding of environmental impacts and reflect the negative repercussions of harmful change.

The aim of this year’s Future Thinkers program was to “teach the students about sustainability in a way never done before, using interactive technology to place them into real-world environments, in this case natural Australian ecoregions,” says Rebecca Bendikov, Head of Education Programs at Lumination.

The winning students in each category have nominated a Charity impacting the Australian environment and Lumination will be making a donation on their behalf.

Congratulations to our Future Thinkers Award Winners for 2023:

The Thinker Award

Most realistic and on-topic solution

Joshua, Tommy, Lydia, Liliana, Everlie
King’s Baptist Grammar School in SA

The team from King’s Baptist Grammar School in SA designed a robot called ‘The Octobob’ to combat bushfires by detecting smoke, raising the alarm and beginning the fire fighting process. ‘The Octobob’ is made of indestructible stainless steel and is fit with water cannons and a water filtration system to allow for rain water to be used to distinguish the fires. The robot also includes advanced AI to detect and alert residents of any active fires.

This team has selected WWF Australia as their charity to support.

The Explorer Award

Going above and beyond all expectations

Charlie and Josef
St Michael’s College in SA

Charlie and Josef created ‘The Stingie’, a device to eradicate the crown of thorns starfish which is an invasive species impacting our coral reefs. ‘The Stingie’ injects salt and vinegar into the starfish, causing it to self destruct without causing any harm to the ocean. The device includes AI capabilities and a rechargeable battery, allowing it to scan the area to detect the starfish without using any chemicals dangerous to the environment.

This team also selected WWF Australia as their charity to support.

The Creator Award

Celebrating creativity and out of the box thinking

Chloe, Gabriel, Hannah and Samson
Holy Spirit Catholic Primary School

This team from Holy Spirit Catholic Primary School created ‘Air Pollution Solution’, a drone circulating above Australia’s cities and forests to limit air pollution by suctioning polluted or contaminated air and filtering it. The drone has AI capabilities, to track and detect polluted air, and a subsequent mobile app to control the device manually.

This team selected Wildlife Warriors as their charity to support.

We congratulate all of our winners for your hard work and passion for making a difference to the Australian environment. To all other incredible participants, your dedication to addressing real-world sustainability issues has not gone unnoticed. Each entry brought a unique perspective and contributed to the spirit of innovation.

Learn more about how you can turn your students into future thinkers using immersive technology by getting in touch with our team to book a demo to see our solutions in action.