Winners of Efficiency for Access Design Challenge 2022 – 23 Announced

University students from around the world have been awarded top honours at the grand final of the Efficiency for Access Design Challenge, a leading technology innovation competition to design off-grid appliances.

Winner of the Gold Award was the team from Independent University, Bangladesh and Makerere University, Uganda for their solar-powered automated anaerobic digestion system which produces cooking gas and a crop fertiliser from food waste.

The complete list of winners can be found here:

People’s Award:

• Team 2022-20 – Strathmore University, Kenya
  • Low-cost IoT irrigation system for limited water supply

Gold Award:

• Team 2022-24 – Independent University, Bangladesh and Makerere University, Uganda
  • Solar-powered automated grinder and anaerobic digestive chamber for producing cooking gas and crop fertilizers

Silver Awards:

• Team 2022-38 – Aston University, UK
  • Solar powered ICT system
• Team 2022-04 – Turkana University College, Kenya
  • Solar powered greenhouse

• Team 2022-20 – Strathmore University, Kenya
  • Low-cost IoT irrigation system for limited water supply

Bronze Awards:

• Team 2022-25 – University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria
  • Solar dryer
• Team 2022-33 – University of Nairobi, Kenya
  • Solar powered atmospheric water generator kiosk
• Team 2022-31 – University of Nairobi, Kenya
  • Automated hydroponic vertical farm

Over 100 aspiring students from Bangladesh, Kenya, Nepal, Nigeria, Senegal, Sweden, Uganda, the UK and Zimbabwe took part in the competition, now in its fourth year.

Click here to read the Year 4 Project Submission Summaries and click here to watch the recording of the Grand Final event.

The purpose of the competition is to enable students worldwide to contribute to the improvement of the lives of communities in underdeveloped or off-grid areas. Presently, around 733 million individuals lack access to electricity, the majority of them concentrated in the Global South.

The Efficiency for Access Design Challenge is delivered by research and development innovators, Efficiency for Access, in collaboration with Engineers Without Borders UK and supported by UK aid and the IKEA Foundation.