Ocean Grazer and IvyONe winners of first Ben Feringa Impact Awards
Ocean Grazer and IvyONe win Ben Feringa Impact Awards
Door Rob Siebelink
By Rob Siebelink
The University of Groningen instituted the prize, named after Nobel Prize winner for chemistry Ben Feringa, at the beginning of this year, with the aim of bridging the gap between science and society.
The prize is awarded in two categories: students and researchers. The winning project in the first category is IvyONe by Niels Wijermans. The winning project in the second category is Ocean Grazer by Wout Prins, Antonis Vakis and Bayu Jayawardhana.
Electricity
The Ocean Grazer harvests energy from sea waves and integrates this with a modular solution for the large-scale storage of electricity that is generated by wind turbines and floating solar panels at sea. As a result, clean energy can be generated under all weather conditions.
Niels Wijermans, a student at FSE, developed a piece of equipment named IvyONe that enables people to walk through corridors and get in busy lifts without having to drag an IV drip stand behind them. Instead, it can be worn as a shoulder bag. This gives patients more freedom of movement and lightens the workload of the nursing staff.
Honourable mentions
Two honourable mentions were also awarded. In the category for researchers it went to the inaugural lecture From pillars to bubbles: on the future of consensus leadership in a globalized society by Caspar van den Berg of the UG/Campus Fryslân.
The honourable mention in the student category went to the project ‘Behavioural counter-expertise in criminal cases’ by Cleo Huisman, Kim de Wildt, Marjorie Drees, Sanne Rodenboog, Maud Olde Keizer, Jolanda de Jong and Pim van Tongeren of the Faculty of Law.
The winners were selected last spring, but due to the corona crisis, the announcement and presentation were postponed. The next round of the Ben Feringa Impact Award will therefore begin in the autumn of 2021.